
Class TIP \ S 



Book. 



H ^^ 



PRESENTED BY 



2Il|f ImuFraUg of Qlljtragfl 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE 
FRENCH REVOLUTION 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 

OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 



BY 



CHARLES OSCAR HARDY 



GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY 

Menasha, Wisconsin 
19 19 



/ 






THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE 
FRENCH REVOLUTION 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 

OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 



BY 



CHARLES OSCAR ^ARDY 



SHft QloUpgiat* Pwbh 
GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY 

Menasha, Wisconsin 
19 19 



Gift 



jIC.58 



PREFACE 

This paper presents a study of the working of the three revolutionary 
assembUes and the development of revolutionary sentiment as illustrated 
by a single problem, the place of the negro in the new regime. It does not 
deal with the history of the French colonies during the revolution except 
as some account of events there is necessary for an understanding of the 
situation with which the assembhes had to deal. 

The study was undertaken under the direction of Professor Ferdinand 
Schevill, whose suggestions and criticisms have placed me under deep 
obHgation. I wish also to express my appreciation of the unfaihng 
courtesy extended to me by Professor George Lincoln Burr, Librarian 
of the Andrew Dickson White Library of Cornell University. Most of 
all I am indebted to Professor Mitchell Bennett Garrett, author of "The 
French Colonial Problem, 1789-91," for innumerable contributions of 
bibhographical and historical data and suggestions concerning their 
interpretation. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I Page 

The Negro Problem in 1789 1 

CHAPTER II 

Attitude oe the Government and of Public Opinion Before the Revolu- 
tion 4 

CHAPTER III 

Beginnings of the Contest in the National Assembly 9 

CHAPTER IV 

The Attempt to Secure Representation for the Free Mulattoes 18 

CHAPTER V 
The Attack on the Slave Trade 23 

CHAPTER VI 

Negro Suffrage 32 

CHAPTER VII 
The Law of May 15, 1791 44 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Closing days of the National Assembly ST 

CHAPTER IX 
Analysis of the National Assembly's Work 56 

CHAPTER X 

The Mulatto Question ijsr the Legislative Assembly 61 

CHAPTER XI 
The Legislative Assembly and the Slave Trade 72 

CHAPTER XII 
The Work of the Convention 74 

CHAPTER XIII 

Conclusion 83 

Bibliography 87 



CHAPTER I 

The Negro Problem in 1789 

The slave-holding colonies of France at the outbreak of the Revolution 
were eight in number, San Domingo, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Cayenne, 
Tabago, St. Lucie, the Isle of France, and the Isle of Bourbon. Of 
these, the five last mentioned may be neglected for the purposes of this 
study, as their combined population was less than 100,000 and they 
played an utterly insignificant role. Martinique and Guadeloupe, with 
a white population of about 25,000, contained about 150,000 slaves and 
a small number of free negroes. These two colonies were represented in 
the National Assemblies, and their problems played a subordinate part 
in the development of the attitude of France toward the negro question. 

For the most part, however, the subject may be discussed with our 
attention fixed upon the flourishing colony of San Domingo. This 
comprised about one-third of the island of Santo Domingo, the remainder 
of which was a possession of Spain. Its population was variously es- 
tunated. Moreau de St. Mery, the best contemporary authority on 
colonial questions, quoted the official figures of 1790 as 30,826 whites, 
24,262 free negroes and mulattoes, and 452,000 slaves.^ 

The condition of the slaves here and in the other French colonies was 
much the same as that of slaves in the tropical colonies of other nations, 
and needs no extended description. Legally, the status of the slave did 
not differ materially from that given him by the typical slave code of 
our own old south. In practice, however, the climate, the nature of the 
sugar-planting industry, the type of social organization, and the character 
of the slaves themselves, many of whom were fresh from Africa, com- 
bined to engender a state of misery and degradation far worse than any 
which ever characterized the cotton plantations of the United States. 
The evil conditions of this life are sufficiently indicated by the failure of 
the population to maintain itself by natural means, the annual excess of 
deaths over births amounting to about two and one-half per cent.^ 

' Speech in the National Assembly, May 14, 1791, Le Hodey, XXV, 501. See 
numerous other estimates collected in Deschamps, Les colonies pendant la revolution, 
290. The figures must be used with care, however, as there are numerous errors in 
the table. 

' Peytraud, L'Esclavage dans les Antilles franjiaises, 35. 



2 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Partly on account of this enormous death rate, and partly on account 
of the rapid growth of the sugar industry, there was a constant demand 
for new slaves from Africa, and a large profit in supplying them. The 
niunber of negroes exported to the French West Indies during the last 
decade before the Revolution is estimated, with probable accuracy, at 
from 30,000 to 35,000 per annum.^ The cruelty of the system by which 
cargoes of negroes were secured in Africa and the cold-blooded barbarity 
with which they were treated during the voyage to America have been 
described by others so fully that there is no need to repeat the story here. 
An average death rate of seven or eight per cent, often running up to 
twenty per cent, bears sufficient witness to the ruthlessness with which 
life was sacrificed to profits.^ 

Another aspect of the negro problem in the colonies, however, is less 
famihar, the question of the status of freedmen and their descendants. 
The free negroes and mulattoes, who were almost equal in number to 
the whites, formed a social class to which nothing in the history of our 
own slave system corresponds. The existence of this class was due to 
the peculiar custom of setting free the offspring of iUicit ujiions between 
slave women and their masters. Some relaxation of morals is inevitable 
under any system of servitude, but in the French Antilles the comparative 
fewness of white women, the isolation, the tropical climate, and the great- 
er liberality of the Latin moral code all combined to make this result of 
slavery more pronounced than in the societies with which we are more 
familiar. In accordance with Roman law, a child of course followed the 
status of its mother, but it was the regular custom of the planters to 
emancipate their mulatto children on the attainment of their majority, 
and in many cases the mother was set free also. Thus it came about that 
the number of free mulattoes was almost equal to that of the whites. 
Most of these free negroes, of course, belonged to the poorest laboring 
class of the community, but there were among them a nmnber of wealthy 
and educated families, some of whom owned considerable numbers of 
slaves. It was claimed during the Revolution that they owned one- 
fourth of the property in the West Indian colonies. 

The situation of this class had no parallel in continental life, and its 
legal position was ambiguous. According to the Code Noir of Louis 
XIV, the fundamental law of slavery, freedmen and their descendants 

'Peytraud, op. ciL, 140. 

* For the whole subject cf. Peytraud, op. ciL, Book 1; Vaissiere, La soci6t6 et la 
vie Creoles, 155-65. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 3 

were entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens of France,^ but 
in defiance of the Code, race prejudice had built up during the eighteenth 
century a special body of customary rules for their control, and this cus- 
tom was recogni^ed by numerous administrative edicts and royal or- 
dinances. The mulattoes, for instance, were forbidden to carry arms 
except when in militia service, and their commissioned officers must be 
white.^ The slightest trace of negro blood was sufficient to debar one 
from attaining noble rank.'' Marriage with a mulatto, which seems to 
have been rather common, was also sufficient to prevent the attainment 
of nobihty.^ Special sumptuary laws prohibited the mulattoes from 
using carriages, and from wearing garments of a certain quality,^ In 
1767 a free negro was sold into slavery for striking a white man, and in 
1778 the execution of a mulatto in the East Indies for an injury done 
a white man was approved by the Minister of Marine and ordered adver- 
tised in San Domingo, "since it is necessary to keep the free negroes and 
slaves in subordination. "^^ Several trades and professions were forbid- 
den to the negroes, including medicine and surgery and the jewelers' 
trade." 

These laws and the social prejudice which inspired them were bittely 
resented by the free mulattoes, the more so as most of the laws were of 
comparatively recent origin.^^ 

" Code Noir, Arts. 57-59. (Peytraud, op. cit., 165-6.) 
« Moreau de Saint-Mery, Lois des colonies, V, 20, 166, 1 73, 824. 
^ Ibid., V, 80. 
8JW(f.,V,520. 

^ Ihid.,\, 855; Gr^goire, M^moire en faveur des gens de couleur, 8. 
" Moreau de Saint-M6ry, op. cit., V, 84, 817. 

" Raimond, Origine du prejug6 centre les hommes de couleur, 8; Gr^goire, op. 
cit., 6-7. 

^* Raimond, op. cit., passim. 



CHAPTER II 

Attitude or the Government and of Public Opinion Before the 

Revolution 

As is well known, by the close of the Middle ages chattel slavery had 
abnost disappeared in Western Europe. In the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries, however, the discovery and settlement of America created a 
new and insistent demand for unskilled labor, a demand which voluntary 
migration could not be induced to supply. At the same time the dis- 
coveries in Africa furnished a new source of supply which the Spanish 
and Portuguese were quick to exploit. By the time the French entered 
the field of colonial enterprise in the early seventeenth century the 
African slave trade had become an estabhshed institution, and the 
French West Indian colonies were founded in every case on the basis 
of slave labor. The number of slaves increased very rapidly during the 
eighteenth century, and the business interests of France became deeply 
involved with the continuance of the African trade and the agricultural 
industries in America which were supposed to depend upon it for their 
existence. The government gave no attention to the moral and social 
aspects of the question,^ but attempted to regulate and encourage the 
trade upon mercantilist principles. Until 1767 the slave trade between 
Africa and the French colonies was a monopoly granted to favored 
companies. It was then thrown open to all Frenchmen, and in 1783 was 
opened to foreigners also. French vessels engaged in the trade received 
substantial bounties from the government. 

Nor was the public much more interested in the human side of the 
question than was the government. Before the late eighteenth century 
there was nothing that can really be called an anti-slavery movement, 
and even after a few voices began to be raised in behalf of the negroes, 
the life of the "people of color," as the free mulattoes were called, was 
almost entirely unknown in Europe.^ The revival of slavery in the 

' Louis XIII, it is said, had qualms of conscience regarding the morahty of the 
system, which were appeased by the consideration that transportation to Christian 
lands offered the pagans of Africa their only hope of conversion and eternal life. 

^ The development of anti-slavery sentiment in the eighteenth century is traced 
briefly in Dunning, History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu, and 
in D^schamps, Histoire de la question coloniale en France, 318-28. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 5 

sixteenth century was approved by the moral and rehgious thought of 
the age, and hardly a single voice was raised in protest till the eighteenth 
century philosophical movement brought in a new sense of the value of 
human life. With the exception of Bodin^ the most eminent thinkers 
of the seventeenth century — Grotius, Hobbes, Bossuet — found slavery 
compatible with their various ideas of the right and wrong of human re- 
lationships. Religious optimism found the will of God in the thitigs 
that were, and Cartesian rationalism was as conservative in its results 
as Calvinistic theology. But with the eighteenth century there arose a 
rigorous logical iconoclasm which found everywhere opportunities for 
improvement. Locke* condemned slavery as contrary to natural law, 
but it was Montesquieu who delivered the first really effective blow. In 
the fifteenth book of the Spirit of the Laws be demohshed systematically 
and completely the current reasoning which justified slavery from the 
right of conquest, the right of the individual to sell himself, the right of 
the father to sell his child, and the right of the Christian to dominate 
over the heathen. Finally in a masterpiece of irony he summarized 
the only sound arguments which, he said, could be offered in defense of 
negro slavery: 

"These creatures are all over black, and with such a flat nose that 
they can scarcely be pitied. " 

"It is hardly to be believed that God, who is a wise Being, should 
place a soul, especially a good soul, in such a black, ugly body. " 

"The negroes prefer a glass necklace to that gold which polite nations 
so highly value; can there be a greater proof of their wanting common 
sense?" 

"It is impossible to suppose these creatures to be men, because al- 
lowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we are not Chris- 
tians. "^ 

Rousseau and Voltaire followed Locke, and the Encyclopedia fol- 
lowed Montesquieu. None of the thinkers of the middle of the century, 
however, were more than incidentally interested in the question, and it 
received no special attention till just before the Revolution. The insti- 
tution of slavery was then attacked in earnest by the Abbe Raynal and 
by Condorcet. RaynaP did little more than to expand the arguments 

' Les six livres de la republique, Book I, ch V. 

* Two Treatises on Government, Book II, ch. 4. 

' The Spirit of the Laws, Book XV, ch. V, (Nugent's translation). According to 
Condorcet, this chapter was accepted by an assembly in Jamaica as a serious defense 
of slavery. (Oeuvres de Condorcet, VII, 97, n. 2.) 



6 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

already advanced by Montesquieu, but his wide knowledge of the colo- 
nies and the passion with which he urged the cause combined to put his 
contribution in a different class from those of his predecessors, and the 
immense popularity of his work transferred the contest from the philoso- 
pher's closet to the arena of public discussion. 

Condorcet, at about the same time, issued the first detailed scientific 
treatment of the question in the French, or for that matter in any, 
language.^ With his usual acuteness of reasoning the philosopher 
analyzed and answered the current arguments, following in general the 
lines mapped out by predecessors, but developing many new points of 
minor importance and supportibg his theories with a substantial array 
of facts, the evident result of a tremendous amount of research. 

Immediately after the appearance of these works the Revolution 
gave the first opportunity to attempt a practical application of the new 
theories. Here, as so often, France received her impulse from England. 
It is necessary, therefore, to review briefly the development of sentiment 
and the beginnings of activity in that country.^ 

There are scattered evidences of the existence in England of sentiment 
against negro slavery from the middle of the seventeenth century, but 
no effective opposition arose till after the middle of the eighteenth. 
The Quakers, whose founder had been a fearless critic of the institution, 
were foremost in the attack. As early as 1727 the Society of Friends 
passed a resolution of censure against the trade, and from about 1758 
its influence was strongly exerted to keep its members from even an 
indirect connection with it. Others than the Quakers became interested. 
Granville Sharp began in 1765 to look after the interests of negroes who 
were claimed in British ports as slaves, and in 1772 was instrumental 
in securing the famous judicial decision that as soon as any slave set foot 
on British soil he became free. In 1783 the Society of Friends submitted 
to Parliament the first petition for the abolition of the slave trade. In 
1785 the cause secured its greatest advocate. That year the subject 
assigned for a competition in Latin composition at Cambridge was, 
"Whether it is right to enslave others against their will," and the prize 
was won by a young churchman named Thomas Clarkson. The winning 

• Philosophical History of the Indies, III, 421-66 (Justamond's translation). 

' Pastor Schwartz (pseudonym), Reflexions sur I'esclavage des negres, Neuchatel 
1781. Revised edition, Paris, I788,0euvresde Condorcet, VII, 63-140. 

* The following account of the development of sentiment in England is based on 
Clarkson, History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the 
African Slave Trade by the British Parliament, I, ch's III-XX. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 7 

essay immediately became a standard authority among opponents of the 
trade, and more important, the author was inspired to devote his hfe to 
the cause of the blacks. At about the same time Wilberforce, a member 
of Parliament and an intimate friend of Pitt, became actively interested. 

Through a union of these forces there was organized in 1787 a "Com- 
mittee for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, " composed chiefly 
of Quakers, but having Granville Sharp as President and Clarkson as its 
most prominent member. Wilberforce, who for some time was not a 
member, was to head the campaign in Parliament, while the Committee 
was to solicit funds, collect information, and arouse public sentiment. 
The campaign thus begun was waged without cessation till the British 
slave trade was abolished in 1806. 

The beginning of political activity in France was a direct outgrowth 
of this work in England. The London Committee was formed on May 
22d, 1787; on August 27th it received a letter from Brissot, requesting 
that he and Claviere might become associates of the Committee for the 
purpose of publishing French translations of its literature and collecting 
subscriptions to be remitted to London for the good of the common 
cause. The committee declined the offer of financial aid, but elected 
Brissot an honorary member and recommended that a society be formed 
in France.® 

In accordance with this recommendation a society was formed in 
Paris in February, 1788, under the name of the Society of Friends of the 
Blacks, with Claviere as President. It adopted the same seal as the 
Committee in England, but was an entirely independent organization. 
Mirabeau was a charter member, and La Fayette and Condorcet were 
among the first additions to its membership. Other prominent members 
who came in later were Sieyes, Petion, Gregoire, Robespierre, and the 
Duke of La Rochefoucauld.^" 

Mirabeau, who had secured an exemption from censorship for his 
journal, stretched his privilege to cover the early publications of the 
society by issuing them as supplements." At a later time Brissot's 
journal, the ''Patriote franjais, " became the organ of the society. 

During Brissot's absence in America, in 1788, the society was dor- 
mant, but on his return it awoke to renewed activity. The hour was 
propitious. The National Assembly, which was to reform everything 

' Clarkson, op. cit., 1,446-7. 

*" Brissot, Memoires, II, 71 ff.; Cahen, La Societe des Amis des Noirs et 
Condorcet, R6v. fr., L, 481-511. 
" Brissot, op. cit., 79-80. 



8 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

vicious in the state, was about to meet. Deputies were being elected, 
cahiers were being written, and the watchword "hberty" was on every 
man's lips. What better opportunity could one anticipate to secure the 
abolition of slavery and the slave trade, the most flagrant violations of 
the principles of equality and liberty that the world had ever seen? 

The Society of t he Friends of the Blacks set to work with enthusiasm. 
On February 3d, 1789, Condorcet, at that time the President, addressed 
a circular letter to all the bailiwicks of France, urging that there be 
inserted in the cahiers a demand that the Estates-General destroy the 
slave trade and make preparation for the ultimate abolition of slavery." 
Several similar pubUcations followed, and efforts were made to obtain 
the election of delegates favorable to the cause. 

The results of this campaign were disappointing. Several leaders of 
the society were elected, but they were men of such prominence that it 
appears improbable that the efforts of the society were an important 
factor in their success, and there is no evidence of any influence in electing 
followers for these leaders.^^ The cahiers reflect a very slight interest. 
Of the thousands of these documents published in the Archives par- 
lementaires, only thirty-seven formulate demands for any action in favor 
of the negroes. Of these, eleven demand the abolition of the slave 
trade, and fifteen the immediate or ultimate aboHtion of slavery. Twelve 
demand that the condition of the slaves be improved in some way, and 
several others are too indefinite to admit of ready classification. Only 
one refers to the condition of the free negroes, which was destined to be 
the chief bone of contention between the Friends of the Blacks and the 
defenders of the existing order. As a whole, the cahiers made it clear 
that an attack on slavery was not a matter vital to the mass of the nation, 
and that success, if it came at all, must be due to the loyalty of the 
Estates-General to the principles of equaHty and liberty, and to the 
ability and energy of the little group of intellectual leaders who made 
up the Society of Friends of the Blacks. 

This fact determined the character of the controversy for several 
years. Anti-slavery agitation was the hobby of an intellectual elite, 
to be promoted by an appeal to men's minds and consciences, in opposi- 
tion oftentimes to their pecuniary interests. Before it could be really 
effective it must become a prejudice, a habitual state of mind with masses 
of men inaccessible to logical argument and moral appeal. 

'^ Au corps electoral contre I'esclavage des noirs, Oeuvres de Condorcet, IX, 471-5. 

"On the campaign of the spring of 1789, cf. Boissonnade, Saint-Domingue a 
la veille la revolution, 208-13. 



CHAPTER III 

Beginnings of the Contest in the National Assembly 
The contest between the Friends of the Blacks and the defenders of 
slavery began in connection with the application of an irregular delega- 
tion for admission to the Estates-General as representatives of San 
Domingo, As this delegation was destined to furnish the leading oppon- 
ents of the Friends of the Blacks, its history is of interest. Early in 1788 
certain colonial proprietors residing in France and a few merchants 
interested in colonial trade, acting in concert with a small number of 
actual residents of San Domingo, began an agitation for representation of 
that colony in the Estates-General, then promised for 1792. An organi- 
zation of nearly two hundred members was formed in Paris under the 
name of the "Colonial Committee." Correspondence was maintained 
with discontented planters, pamphlet literature was published, and 
petitions were circulated among the colonial proprietors both in San 
Domingo and in France. After an attempt to secure the personal 
influence of the Counts of Provence and Artois and the Duke of Orleans, 
formal request was made to the king for representation of San Domingo. 
This request was refused by the Council of State. The agitators, how- 
ever, boldly drew up and sent to the colony a plan for electoral assemblies. 
These assemblies were held, without any legal sanction, and thirty-one 
deputies were elected. 

While these irregular elections were proceeding the Committee con- 
tinued its work in France, and succeeded in securing a demand for the 
admission of colonial deputies in at least fourteen cahiers of primary 
assemblies. Repeated applications were made to Necker and to the 
Minister of Marine, but without result, and when the Estates-General 
opened the representatives of San Domingo had no legal standing.^ 
Nevertheless, part of the deputies presented themselves on June 8th, 
making application separately to each of the three orders. 

The third estate alone proved receptive. On June 20th, eight San 
Domingo deputies were allowed to take the Tennis Court Oath. On 
June 27th the Committee on Credentials made a report unanimously 

* This account of the origin of the colonial deputation is based on the excellent 
narrative in Boissonnade, op. cit., ch's 6-9. 



10 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

recommending the admission of the colonial deputation but declared 
itself unable to agree on the number of deputies to which the colony was 
properly entitled. The Assembly accepted the report, apparently with- 
out a dissenting voice, and postponed discussion of the question of num- 
bers to July 3d.2 

So far the deputation had easy saiHng. Half the committee had 
favored the admission of twenty deputies, half of twelve, either figure 
being far in excess of what the colony could expect on the basis of the 
number of its free inhabitants. But more was involved than a question 
of parliamentary organization. The question brought squarely before 
the assembly the delicate problems of slavery and the status of free 
negroes under the new regime, and brought upon the colonial delegation 
the wrath of the powerful Society of the Friends of the Blacks. 

Immediately after the first appearance at Versailles of the San Do- 
mingo deputation the Friends of the Blacks had recognized a foe. Mira- 
beau's newspaper challenged their right to count the slaves as a basis of 
representation, and taunted them with bitter words: "Either count your 
negroes as men or as beasts; if they are men, free them, let them vote, 
let them be elected to office. If they are cattle, let the number of your 
deputies be made proportional to your human population; we have 
counted neither our horses nor our mules. "^ 

Between the vote of admission on June 27th and the final.debate 
on July 3d and 4th the Friends of the Blacks awoke to the importance 
of the issue. Condorcet published a vigorous pamphlet denouncing 
the slave-holder and all his works. "We are tempted," said he, "to 
advocate a law which shall exclude from the National Assembly every 
man who, as a slaveholder, is interested in the maintfenance of principles 
contrary to the natural rights of man, which are the only purpose of every 
political organization. . . . The natural right of man to be governed 
only by laws to which he has given his consent cannot be invoked in favor 
of a man who is himself at the very moment violating the law of nature. " 
The pamphlet closes with the remark that the planters can doubtless 
speak concerning their own interests, "but that on their lips the sacred 
word 'rights' would be blasphemy against reason."^ The last sentence 
gives the key to the conflict that was to follow. On the one hand, the 
remorseless logic of a century devoted to the worship of reason, sacred 

2 Point du jour, I, 61-4. Le Hodey, l; 259-62. XlVe Lettre du comte de Mira- 
beau a ses commetans, 4-9. 

^ Xe Lettre du comte de Mirabeau a ses comm6tans, 3. 
* Oeuvres de Condorcet, IX, 477-85, 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 11 

principles which the opposition never dared to deny and scarcely at- 
tempted to evade; on the other hand the economic interests of powerful 
groups of "practical" men, antagonistic to one another in many of their 
aims, but drawn together by the common need of self-protection against 
the men of ideals. 

When the question was reopened on July 3d, Mirabeau took the lead 
in the discussion, raising again the question of counting the slaves, and 
arguing further that the so-called deputies really represented only about 
one-half even of the free population, since the whole body of free blacks 
and mulattoes had been excluded from the suffrage.^ In this debate, 
as on many future occasions, the mouthpiece of the colonial deputation 
was the Marquis de Gouy d'Arsy, a colonial proprietor residing in Paris, 
who had been from the beginning a leader in the movement for colonial 
representation. Gouy made no attempt to defend the principle of slave 
representation, but based his claim for the admission of eighteen or twen- 
ty delegates on the wealth and commercial importance of the colony. 
His weak point was the exclusion of free tax-paying mulattoes from the 
electoral assemblies. According to the Abbe Jallet he said that since 
the mulattoes were natural enemies of the whites it would be dangerous 
to give them any influence, an argument which, as one might expect, 
made a bad impression on the assembly.^ 

The debate dragged over into the next day without bringing out any 
other argument of importance, and the number of deputies was finally 
settled by a weary compromise at six.'' Although there was some oppo- 
sition from other sources, including a rival group of colonial proprietors 
who protested against the seating of any delegates at all, it is clear that 
the opposition of the Friends of the Blacks was the main cause of the 
deputation's reduction in number from twelve or more to six. 

The chief importance of this discussion was the prominence which it 
gave to two questions that the colonial deputies were most anxious to 
keep smothered — slavery and the civil status of the free negroes. Dur- 
ing the debate of June 27th the Duke of La Rochefoucauld found oppor- 
tunity to present the aims of the Society of Friends of the Blacks, and 
requested the future consideration of the problem of emancipation. Four 
other deputies called attention at the same time to the demands of their 

5 Le Hodey, 1, 323-6; Point du jour, 1, 99-100. 

'Journal, 115-6. Cf.LeHodey, 1,335; Duquesnoy, Journal, 1, 160. 

' Le Hodey, I, 341-54; Point du jour, I, 107-8. This was the first occasion on 
which the vote "par tete " was employed, and a large number of the clergy and nobility 
refused to participate. 



12 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE TRENCH REVOLUTION 

constituents that something be done to improve the condition of the 
slaves, and their remarks received hearty applause.^ 

Other events quickly followed which convinced the colonial deputies 
that there was real danger in the Revolution for their peculiar institu- 
tions. In July there arrived at Versailles one Raimond, a mulatto, a 
native of San Domingo, who had come to France in 1784 to seek some 
amelioration of the condition of the free mulattoes.® He had accom- 
plished nothing and when the National Assembly convened it was only 
natural that he should turn to it for assistance. Raimond was a man of 
considerable education, the author of numerous well written pamphlets 
and a politician of no mean ability. He came of a family of wealthy 
planters, and was at least three-fourths white.^" 

At about the same time there appeared another formidable antag- 
onist of the planting and slave-trading interests. The British Com- 
mittee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade had slackened its activity 
in England on account of an adjournment of Parliament, and took the 
opportunity to send Thomas Clarkson to work in the National Assembly. 
Immediately on his arrival at Versailles Clarkson sought the acquain- 
tance of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, Condorcet, Brissot, Petion, La 
Fayette, and other Friends of the Blacks and began a quiet campaign 
against the slave trade." Moreover, at the famous session of August 
4th, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld again brought up the question of the 
emancipation of all the slaves, and besought the Assembly to give it 
consideration before closing its labors. ^^ 

Thus before the end of the summer of 1789 the defenders of the inter- 
ests of slavery found themselves confronted with three distinct threaten- 
ing movements — the free mulatto question agitated by Raimond, the 
question of the slave trade pushed to the front by Clarkson, and in the 
back ground the demand for emancipation. In response to these move- 

* Point du jour, 1, 64; Jallet, op. cit., 107. 

' Raimond, Veritable origine des troubles de Saint-Domingue, et des differentes. 
causes qui les ontproduits, 4. Lettre au citoyen D, 7. 

" Raimond, Observations sur I'origine et les progres de prejug6 des colons blancs 
centre les hommes de couleur, 41-3. Page et BruUey, Developpement des causes de& 
troubles et des desastres des colonies, 61. 

" Clarkson, op. cit., II, 123 ff. 

^^ Courrier de Provence, No. 23, 19. Gouy d'Arsy claimed two years later that, 
he alone prevented the assembly from declaring the slaves free on that memorable 
night (Confession d'un depute dans ses derniers momens, 4) and the whole San 
Domingo deputation made a similar claim for themselves. (Garran, Rapport sur les. 
troubles en Saint-Domingue, 1, 142.) 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 13 

ments there ensued a rapid development of counter-organizations to 
defend the existing order. There was, in the first place, the so-called colo- 
nial committee (not to be confused with the colonial committee of 1788-9, 
described above, or with the colonial committee of the Assembly, or- 
ganized later) consisting of the six San Domingo deputies admitted on 
July 4th, together with their twelve alternates, who had been granted 
seats on the floor of the Assembly. This whole group maintained an 
organization of which the six deputies were only the mouthpieces, their 
votes on all important matters being decided by a preliminary caucus of 
the eighteen.^^ 

Rivalling this "committee" was another organization, the "Cor- 
responding Society of French Colonists, " commonly known as the Mas- 
siac Club. This aristocratic club of wealthy planters was formally 
organized August 20, 1789, and by October had 435 members. Although 
the object of the Club was to promote much the same interests as the 
colonial committee, it took issue sharply with the deputies on the question 
of political methods. The deputies posed as radical revolutionists, while 
the Club was strongly royalist and opposed every attempt to work 
through the National Assembly or even the recognition of its authority 
over the colonies. It was this group, then not fully organized, which had 
protested in July against the admission of the San Domingo deputation. 
The two organizations never came to work in harmony. The Club pub- 
Hshed large numbers of pamphlets, chiefly for circulation in the colonies, 
dispatched agents to the islands, exercised an illegal but effective over- 
sight over the movement of colonists from France to San Domingo 
and had a very large influence with the ministry.^^ 

From this time we find the colonists generally on the defensive. The 
negro question was not the issue which had brought them to Versailles. 
Discontent with the trade laws, dissatisfaction with a recent reorganiza- 
tion of the government of San Domingo, desire for a larger share in the 
administration, tax grievances, all these were more important causes of 
their demand for representation than was their fear of legislation on 
behalf of the slaves. Hence they could pose as revolutionaries, but the 
enumeration of their grievances shows how little they had in common 
with the radical party in France. Superficially there was a common 
purpose — the overthrow of Bourbon despotism and the estabUshment 
of some form of self-government. But as soon as we note what bene- 

" Garran, op. cit., I, 50. 

" Garran, op. cit., 1, 54-9; Deschamps, Les colonies pendant la revolution, 53-7; 
Raimond, Veritable origine, 16. 



14 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

j&ts the colonists expected to secure through self-government a wide 
difference becomes apparent. The characteristic abuses of the old 
regime were unknown in San Domingo. There was no distinction of 
orders; instead there was a hierarchy of caste, and the democratic enthu- 
siasm which was seeking to wipe out all distinctions between classes of 
men found no echo in the hearts of the revolutionists of San Domingo. 
They were devotees of liberty indeed, for liberty meant the overthrow 
of the mercantilist commercial system which subordinated their interests 
to those of the merchants of France. But their democracy was the 
democracy of our own old South — equality and liberty within a class set 
apart from the mass of humanity by impassable barriers of race, color, 
and legal bondage. And now in the very beginning of the Revolution 
they found the new catch-words of liberty and equality so interpreted 
as to threaten a deadly thrust at their most vital economic interests and 
a still deadlier thrust at social prejudices as dear as the maintenance of 
their economic life. 

The dangerous position of the colonial deputation at this time was 
frankly set forth in an open letter to their constituents, dated August 12, 
1789, which became public in France in the spring of 1790, and attracted 
much unfavorable attention to its authors. It read in part as follows: 

**The colony, gentlemen, is in a two-fold danger — equally serious 
under either aspect. Danger from without (here follows a rumor of 
an English expedition against the island) . . . Danger within — they 
are trying to stir up revolt among our "negroes. . . . We see the dan- 
ger, and we are forced to keep silent — they are drunk with liberty. 
Gentlemen, a society of fanatics, calling themselves the Friends of the 
Blacks, is openly writing against us; it is watching for a favorable oppor- 
tunity to make an attack on slavery; if we should only pronounce the 
word it might give them an opportunity to make a demand for the 
emancipation of our slaves. . . . Watch, and again watch; the National 
Assembly is too busy with the internal affairs of the kingdom to take 
thought for us. . . . Arrest suspects; confiscate writmgs in which the 
word 'liberty' occurs; guard your homes; everywhere make sure of the 
free mulattoes;^^ be suspicious of those who return from Europe. One 
of your greatest misfortunes is that it has been impossible to forbid the 
departure of the mulattoes who are in France; the spirit of the times 
was opposed to our desires; to prohibit the embarcation even of slaves 

^^ "AUachons." The phrase was variously interpreted by contemporaries and 
was probably intentionally ambiguous. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 15 

would have been denounced to the nation. . . . This crisis will not 
last; count on us. "^^ 

What a dilemma! These deputies had taken the Tennis Court Oath 
with enthusiasm, they sat on the left, yet they regarded the word "Uber- 
ty" as dangerous, congratulated themselves that the Assembly was too 
busy to take thought for them, and looked forward eagerly to the time 
when the intoxication of the first draught of liberty should have passed. 

Eight days later the Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted. 
Among its ringing phrases one looks in vain for a reference to the relations 
of black man and white. No specific reference was made in it to colonial 
conditions; indeed none could be made without passing definitely on the 
whole question of slavery. But Mirabeau published an interpretation of 
the Declaration which pushed it to its logical conclusion, the immediate 
and absolute emancipation of all the slaves on the soil of France: 

"After havmg fully stated the principle, the National Assembly will 
not deny its most just and legitimate consequences. . . . What it will 
say ... is that neither in France nor in any country subject to the 
laws of France can there be any other men than free men; men equal 
among themselves. . . . Not one of them (the San Domingo deputa- 
tion) has ofifered an amendment to the effect that 'White men only are 
born and remain free.' . . . 'Black men are born and remain slaves.' 
No, not one of their deputies has used such abominable language, and 
none of them has given evidence of the shghtest reservation in his accep- 
tance of the Assembly's decree. This, then, is not only the will of the 
National Assembly but that of the planters themselves, that every man, 
regardless of color, shall have equal right to liberty. "" 

Five pages of this literature emanating from the most influential 
member of the Assembly might well cause uneasiness in the minds of the 
owners of slave capital. The colonial deputies, indeed, always remained 
hostile to the Declaration and claimed that it did not apply to the colo- 
nies.^** Logically this limitation was impossible, and Mirabeau's inter- 
pretation was correct, for the Declaration by its own terms was of universal 

" Published in Courrier de Provence, No. Ill, 471-4, in Raimond, Veritable ori- 
gine, 6-8 , and separately as pamphlet edited by the San Domingo deputation. 

" Courrier de Provence, No. 30, 1-6. 

" For instance, when the members of the Assembly were summoned, on February 
4th, 1790, to take an oath of allegiance to the new constitution, which of course in- 
cluded the Declaration, the colonial deputies hastily secured a statement from the 
President that the oath bound them only as individuals, not as representatives of the 
colony, and part of them took the oath with the reservation, "I swear only in my own 
name." Ga.iTa.n, op. cit. ,1,66; GazettedeParis, Feb. 7, 1790. 



16 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

application. Had it been merely a statement of the hard-earned historic 
rights of Frenchmen, like the English Bill of Rights, it would have been 
possible to except the colonies from its provisions, and no doubt the 
Assembly would ultimately have done so. But a statement of the inher- 
ent rights of man admits of no geographical circumscription, even at 
the hands of a sovereign constitutional convention, so it was left for 
circumstances to determine what weight the Declaration would have in 
the slave-holding colonies. 

It appeared now as though a trial of strength on the question of 
abolition was imminent, but for some reason Mirabeau and his associates 
suddenly lost interest and allowed the question to disappear from the 
field of controversy. Apparently they decided that there was some 
truth in the contention that immediate aboHtion would be disastrous, 
and so sacrificed their principles to their prudence. Whatever the reason , 
from this time the Friends of the Blacks limited their ambition to the 
abolition of the slave trade and the estabhshment of civil and poHtical 
rights for the free negroes. Their opponents continued to overwhelm 
them with abuse as advocates of aboHtion, while the Friends of the Blacks 
vigorously denied that they had any thought of such a thing, and accused 
their opponents of demohshing a man of straw.^^ 

This continued to be true throughout the period of the Constituent 
and Legislative Assemblies, no further motion or address looking toward 
aboHtion ever being made on the floor of either of these bodies. 

Concerning the statesm^anship of this position there can scarcely be 
dispute, for there is no question that the immediate grant of full liberty 
in colonies with a population nine-tenths of which was composed of 
ignorant Africans would have hurled the whole mass back into savagery. 
But the moderate temporizing attitude which leads to this conclusion 
cannot be reconciled with the principles of the revolution and of the 

" The following quotations indicate the attitude of leading Friends of the Blacks 
on the emancipation question : 

" Je ne viens point vous dire ici de briser les fers de ces esclaves infortunes; une 
liberte inconsideree seroit pour eux le plus funeste present. " Petion, speech written 
to deliver Oct. 12, 1790, not delivered. Oeuvres,III, 139-180. 

"Nous croyons qu'afFranchir submitement les esclaves noirs seroit une oppression, 
non-seulement pour les colonies, mais que dans I'etat d'abjection et de nullity ou la 
cupidity a reduit les noirs ce seroit leur faire un present funeste. " Adresse de la 
Soci6t6 des Amis des Noirs de Paris a I'assemblee nationale, redigee par E. Clavi^re, 
108. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 17 

philosophy of which the revolution was an expression. By the gospel 
of Jean Jacques, by the Declaration of Rights, by all that the revolution 
held most sacred, the black man was entitled to his freedom, and neither 
the Friends of the Blacks nor their more candid opponents claimed that 
the peculiar difficulty of granting him his freedom made the maintenance 
of his slavery any less immoral. They simply sacrificed morality to 
expediency. The fatal results of this sacrifice wiU become apparent as 
we trace the sequel. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Attempt to Secure Representation for the Free Mulattoes 
During the six months following the Declaration of the Rights of 
Man, the two questions of the status of free negroes and the abolition of 
the slave trade obtained a fair amount of public attention, in spite of 
the larger questions which were continually thrusting themselves before 
the people. It will be necessary to trace the two movements separately 
for though they were supported by the same philanthropists and opposed 
by the same interests, their active management fell to different lobbyists 
and they had little direct connection with one another. First let us trace 
the efforts of Raimond and his friends to secure social and political 
recognition for the free colored population. 

Raimond, as has been noted, appeared at Versailles about the middle 
of July, 1789. He first consulted the Minister of Marine, through 
whom he obtained several interviews with the colonists who were meeting 
at the home of the Count Massiac. Raimond's program as presented 
to these planters was moderate: freedom for the children of slave mothers 
by white fathers, civil rights for mulattoes already free, and abolition of 
the slave trade.^ Nothing came of the discussions, though Raimond 
claimed that the Club seriously considered supporting the mulattoes' 
cause till they saw that the latter were too loyal to France to fall in with 
the planters' schemes of virtual colonial independence. It appears more 
probable, from Malouet's account, that the planters were merely trying 
to delay Raimond's plans.^ 

The next move of the mulattoes was a bold one. They drew up a 
cahier embracing a wide range of demands for reform and including a 
request for the admission to the Assembly of deputies representing the 
free colored citizens.^ Then they held an election and began a serious 
campaign for the admission of their representatives. On October 22d 

•Raimond, V6ritable origine, 16, 17. Deschamps, Les Colonies pendant la 
revolution, 209-10. 

*Malouet, M6moires sur les colonies, IV, 11-12. Extrait du proces-verbal de 
I'Assemblee de citoyens libres et proprietaires de couleur des isles et colonies Fran- 
coises, constitues sous le titre de colons americains. 

^ Brette, Les gens de couleur libres et leurs deputes en 1789, R6v. fr., XXIX, 
33 1 . Cf . Extrait du Proces-verbal, cited above. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 19 

there appeared at the bar of the Assembly a body of mulattoes, repre- 
senting themselves to be owners of property in the colonies, and asking 
that five of their number be admitted to represent the free colored popu- 
lation of the West Indies. Through De Joly, a white lawyer who acted 
as their spokesman, they presented a long pompous address, from which 
an extract may be of interest: 

"The free citizens of color, proprietors, of the French Isles and colonies 
have the honor to represent to you: That there stiU exists in this Empire 
a class of men despised and degraded; a class of citizens condemned to 
degradation, to all the humihations of slavery — in a word. Frenchmen 
who groan beneath the yoke of oppression. . . . The Estates-General 
have been summoned. . . . The cry of liberty has sounded in the 
other hemisphere. It ought, no doubt, to have stifled even the memory 
of these outrageous distinctions between the citizens of the same country; 
it has only made them the more odious. For the ambitious aristocracy 
liberty is only the right to dominate, without restraint, over other men. 
The white colonists . . . have grasped for themselves the right of 
holding assembhes and electing representatives for the colonies. . . . 
Thus the citizens of color find themselves represented by the deputies of 
the white colonists, when it is evident on the one hand that they have not 
. . . delegated any power to these deputies, and on the other hand that 
the divergence of their interests would make such a representation 
absurd. . . . Under the instruction of the Declaration of the Rights of 
Man the colored colonists have learned what they are; they have risen 
to the dignity you have given them; they have learned their rights and 
made use of them. They have met, drawn up a cahier which contains 
all their demands. . . . They have charged their deputies with it, and 
now they ask in this august assembly a representation which is necessary 
that they may uphold their interests against the tyrannical pretentions 
of the whites. " 

The orator then made a patriotic offering of one-fourth the mulattoes' 
income, estimated to amount to six miUion hvres, and two per cent of 
their property, and closed with an effective appeal to the principles of 
the Declaration of Rights.* 

The President of the Assembly replied: "No part of the nation shall 
ask in vain for its rights before the Assembly of its representatives; those 
whom the breadth of the seas or prejudices concerning differences of 

* This discourse, by order of the National Assembly, was printed in full in the 
Pieces-verbal. (No. 105, 2-9) 



20 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

origin seem to place farther from its sight shall be brought near by those 
sentiments of humanity which characterize all its deliberations and 
animate all its efforts. " . The hearty applause which followed the address 
of the deputation and the reply of the President showed that the mulat- 
toes had made a successful appeal. They were granted seats of honor, 
and their papers were referred to the Committee on Credentials.^ 

A legal-minded assembly would of course have ignored the mulattoes' 
claim. But the National Assembly was anything but legal-minded, and 
the deputation actually came very near securing seats. They probably 
would have succeeded if the question had reached an early vote. Against 
them it was argued that their credentials were issued by no legally con- 
stituted elective bodies, that neither the deputies nor the electors had 
been in the West Indies recently, and that a gathering of mulattoes in 
Paris could in no legal or moral sense claim to be the authorized mouth- 
piece of the colored population of the islands. Moreover the Assembly 
had already fixed the number of deputies to be allowed the principal 
West Indian colonies, and the deputations were full.« But the mulat- 
toes retorted with a " tu quoque, " showing that in the case of the Marti- 
nique and Guadeloupe deputies^ the elections took place in Paris, that 
none of the colonial deputies were chosen by really representative bodies, 
and that the Assembly had repeatedly chosen to dispense with legal 
formality rather than leave any part of the nation unrepresented. The 
lack of proper credentials the mulattoes explained by the necessity for 
haste if they were to participate in making the constitution, and by the 
fact that all assemblies were strictly forbidden by law in the colonies.^ 

The committee on credentials, of which the Abbe Gregoire, a vahant 
Friend of the Blacks, was a member, discussed the case at eleven sessions, 
and finally voted to recommend the admission of two colored deputies.® 

This report for some reason never reached the Assembly. Gregoire 
says simply that it was prevented by " des brigues et des cahales. "^° Rai- 

» Proces-verbal, No. 105; Le Hodey, V, 136-9; Raimond, Veritable origine, 18, 19. 
Cf. also Courrier de Provence, No. 56, 14-5; Point du jour, III, 409-10; Journal des 
debats et de decrets, No. 74, 2 . 

• Cocherel, Observations a 1' Assemblee nationale sur la demande des mulatres. 

' Two deputies had been admitted for Guadeloupe on September 22d and two for 
Martinique on October 14th. 

« The case of the mulattoes is best stated in their "Lettre . . . aMMlesMem- 
bres du comite de verification . . . " reprinted Arch, pari., X, 329-33. 

'Gregoire, Lettre aux philanthropes, also speech of May 11, 1791, Moniteur, 
VIII, 367. Cocherel, op. ciL, 3. Raimond, Veritable origine, 19. 

'" Moniteur, loc. cit. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 21 

iRond says that the reporter tried twice to present the report of the com- 
mittee but could not make himself heard above the din raised by the 
colonists and their friends.^^ If this is true, and it is not inconsistent 
with the parliamentary methods of the Assembly, it shows that organized 
work had been done by the conservatives since the mulattoes received 
their ovation in October. 

On December 3d Gregoire tried to bring up the report in connection 
with another colonial question. A colonial deputy had moved to create a 
colonial committee of twenty, of whom half should be colonial deputies 
and half merchants engaged in colonial trade. This evoked a very lively 
debate, involving the whole controversy between the Massiac Club 
and the colonial deputies in regard to the Assembly's authority over the 
colonies. At the beginning of the discussion the President allowed the 
Assembly to hear a petition from Bordeaux for a law pledging the Assem- 
bly never to interfere with slavery, while at the same timic he suppressed 
a petition from the mulattoes objecting to the creation of a colonial 
committee.^^ At this point the Abbe Gregoire raised the question of 
representation for the mulattoes, and kept the floor in the face of vigorous 
■efforts to drown out his voice with shouts of ''Order! Order!" Finally 
securing attention he cried: "If there is in the colonies a class of citizens 
who have grievances to be redressed, observations to offer, a constitution 
to demand; if these citizens have all the qualifications which you demand 
for active citizenship; and if nevertheless they are not represented, surely 
they have the right to expect from your justice that they be admitted 
to representation. " "Who will defend in this committee an unfortunate 
race which they (the colonists) have oppressed for more than a century 
and wish to continue to oppress." The abbe's appeal evoked no re- 
sponse; the question he raised was held to be irrelevant, and the discus- 
sion proceeded on the main question.^^ 

" Veritable origine, loc. cit. 

" Supplique . . . sur la motion faite le 27 novembre par M. de Curt, etc., 30. 
Point du jour, V, 9-11. Le Hodey, VI, 273. 

" Le Hodey, VI, 277-8; Brette, op. cit., Rev. fr., XXIX, 385-6; Point du jour, V, 
14. The decision was adverse to the appointment of the special committee, but it does 
not appear that this result indicates in any way the attitude of the assembly toward 
the negro question, as has sometimes been assumed. The main purpose of the colo- 
nists in asking for the committee was to prevent colonial questions, particularly race 
questions, from coming before the assembly, but the chief opposition came from pro- 
prietors, who opposed the representation of the colonies and did not wish to see the 
influence of the deputies enhanced. The Assembly as a whole evidently did not under- 



22 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

No further attention, apparently, was given the question of mulatto 
representation by the Assembly. Just how long the colored citizens 
continued their attempt to seat their deputies we cannot tell, but they 
probably gave it up before March." If the attempt had not been aban- 
doned before that time, the creation of a committee on colonies in March 
and the subsequent attempt to make a separate colonial constitution 
killed the issue. Before taking up these developments, however, it will 
be necessary to review the other line of effort pursued by the Friends 
of the Blacks in the autumn of 1789, the attempt to prohibit the Afri- 
can slave trade. 

stand the points at issue. Cf. Letter of the Secretary of the San Domingo deputation 
to the Massiac Club, Jan. 22, 1790, Garran, op. cit., 1, 125. 
" Cf . Clarkson, op. cit., II, 149. 



CHAPTER V 

The Attack on the Slave Trade 

Mention has been made of the coming of Thomas Clarkson to Ver- 
sailles in August, 1789, in the interest of the British Committee for the 
Abolition of the Slave Trade.^ His first steps were taken through the 
cooperation of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks. Condorcet, 
Brissot, and another member were delegated to accompany Clarkson 
in seeking an audience with Necker, and a letter was addressed to the 
President of the National Assembly, asking him to appoint a day for 
hearing the cause of the negroes. The attempt to secure a hearing from 
the Assembly proved fruitless, but Necker showed a considerable degree 
of interest. The merchants and planters became alarmed and began a 
counter-agitation. Claviere and Clarkson received anonymous letters 
threatening them with assassination, and spies were hired to attend the 
committee meetings of the Friends of the Blacks.^ A rumor was started 
that the Friends of the Blacks were about to send muskets to the negroes 
of San Domingo and foment an insurrection there, and the rooms of the 
committee were searched by soldiers. Clarkson was repeatedly accused 
of being a British spy. 

After about seven weeks of fruitless effort, Clarkson began a per- 
sonal canvass of the Assembly. He arranged for a small meeting of 
persons interested, and secured the attendance of Sieyes, La Rochefou- 
cauld, and Petion, from the National Assembly, and Condorcet, Claviere, 
and Brissot from the Friends of the Blacks. The question to be settled 
at this meeting was whether it would be better to push forward the ques- 
tion of the slave trade at this time, or postpone it till the meeting of the 
first Legislative Assembly, which it was then beheved would occur by 
March, 1790. It was feared by some that the revolutionary movement 
might be injured by coupling it with the question of the slave trade, con- 
verting the sea-port towns which had an interest in the trade into enemies 
of the Revolution, and enabling counter-revolutionists to claim that the 
interests of France were being sacrificed to those of England. Clarkson, 

' The following account of Clarkson's activities is based chiefly on his own nar- 
rative, op. cit., II, 123-60. 

' Cf . an anonymous letter threatening journalists who should print anything con- 
cerning the negroes, Moniteur, III, 168. 



24 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE PRENCH REVOLUTION 

less concerned than the rest about the effect of their actmty on the 
Revolution, asked whether the question could be carried with more or 
with less difficulty in the coming legislature. The answer illustrates 
well the amazing faith of the men of the Revolution in the efficacy of in- 
stitutional reform. Clarkson was told unanimously "that there would 
be no greater difficulty in one than in the other case; for that people would 
daily more and more admire their constitution; that this constitution 
would go down to the next Legislature, from whence would issue solid 
and fixed principles which would be resorted to as a standard for de- 
cision on all occasions. Hence the slave trade, which would be adjudged 
by it also, could not possibly stand. Add to which that the most virtuous 
members in the present would be chosen into the new legislature, which, 
if the constitution were but once fairly established would not regard the 
murmurs of any town or province."^ It was therefore decided not to 
push the issue till the meeting of the next Assembly. 

Clarkson was about to return to England, but on consulting Mirabeau 
and La Fayette he found them both opposed to the postponement of the 
fight. Mirabeau offered to manage the bill in the Assembly, and asked 
Clarkson to furnish him the details to complete a speech on the subject 
which he had already begun.^ 

For the next six weeks Clarkson labored with amazing industry at 
the task of supplying ammunition for Mirabeau's artillery. For a month 
he wrote a sixteen or twenty page- letter every other day. Over a thou- 
sand elaborate plates representing the detailed plan of a slave ship, a 
French edition of the Essay on the Impolicy of the Slave Trade, and 
much other material, were sent from England for distribution among the 
members of the National Assembly. In the work of distribution there 
participated most of the revolutionary leaders already mentioned as being 

' Clarkson, op. cit., II, 138-43. (Quotation marks Clarkson's.) 
* La Fayette, who was not consulted till after this arrangement was made, gave a 
very characteristic comment: "Mirabeau is a host in himself, and I should not be 
surprised if by his own eloquence and popularity he were to carry it, and yet I regret 
that he has taken the lead in it. The cause is so lovely that even ambition, abstractly 
considered, is too impure to take it under its protection and not to sully it. It should 
have been placed in the hands of the most virtuous man of France. That man is the 
Duke of La Rochefoucauld. But you cannot alter things now. You cannot take it 
out of his hands. I am sure he will be second to no one on this occasion. " (Clarkson, 
op. cit., II, 144-6.) 

One is tempted to inquire whether La Fayette would not have been gratified if 
Clarkson had courteously transferred the halo of superlative virtue from the brow of 
La Rochefoucauld to his own. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 25 

interested, together with Necker, Madame Necker, the Marchioness 
de La Fayette, and other persons of prominence. Clarkson had numer- 
ous interviews with Necker, and even the king became personally inter- 
ested. 

While this agitation was proceeding, the opposition also increased 
its activity. Offers of money were made to Mirabeau if he would aban- 
don the cause, and literature in opposition to Clarkson's was circulated 
in abundance. 

One of the most significant results of the contest was the aUiance it 
brought about between the planting interests and the commercial cities. 
The interests of the planters and the merchants of France were diametri- 
cally opposed in regard to the regulation of colonial commerce and there 
existed between them an ancient hostility. But the merchants, like the 
planters, were financially interested in the slave trade and in the main- 
tenance of peace and order in the islands, and the specter of a slave 
insurrection, paraded before them as the inevitable result of any interfer- 
ence with the existing relations of mulattoes and whites, confirmed by 
reports of disorders in Martinique, brought them into an unstable alliance 
with the planters. Thus we find that the Massiac Club after trying in 
vain to secure from the ministry an order prohibiting the return of mulat- 
toes from France to San Domingo, wrote to the principal seaports urging 
the owners of ships to refuse passage to these mulattoes, and obtained 
from several ports a pledge of comphance.^ This promise was being 
observed in the summer of 1790.^ The colonial deputation likewise began 
to cultivate friendly relations with the merchants, as is witnessed by 
their proposal to include ten merchants in the colonial committee.'^ 
Through the influence of the deputies and through the activity of the 
Massiac Club, which had established branches in the commercial cities, 
these cities were aroused to action, and petitions began to rain in on the 
Assembly, protesting against any interference with vested interests.^ 

* Proces-verbal of Massiac Club, cited by Deschamps, Les colonies pendant la 
revolution, 208. Cf. letter of the San Domingo deputation, above, pp. 14-5. 

« Brette, op. ciL, Rev. fr. XXIX, 400. 

' "Leurs deputes a I'Assemblee nationale, toujours nos adversaires sur leur 
interet personnel, le regime exclusif du commerce, ont senti que cet interet les forfoit 
de se reunir a nous sur tous les autres points, et leur influence nous a servis heureuse- 
ment. " Correspondence of the San Domingo deputies, quoted Garran, op. cit., 1, 126. 

« Proces-verbal de I'Assemblee nationale, Jan. 21, 1790, 23; Jan. 14, 1790, 5; 
Feb. 6, 1790, 20. Gerbaux et Schmidt, Proces-verbal du comite d'agriculture et de 
commerce, I, 95, 111, 115, 131, 134, 135, 143, 171, 196. 



26 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

The Friends of the Blacks, on the other hand, neglected to avail 
themselves of the right of petition. Aside from addresses submitted by 
the Society itseh and by the mulatto organization, a single short and 
moderate paragraph buried in a long general address on liberty^ appears 
to be the only appeal on behalf of the negroes which was received by the 
Assembly. It was not till the Jacobin Club at a later date took up the 
negroes' cause that the planting interests had to contend with political 
forces as well organized'ds their own. 

In this contest for the support of public opinion the conservatives won. 
Clarkson's account of events in the early winter shows that the cause of 
the negroes was losing ground, and the correspondence of the San Do- 
mingo deputation bears witness to the same change. At first they admit- 
ted that the majority of the Assembly were against them^" but on 
January 11th they wrote: 

"This -new spirit . . . manifested itself in the session of December 
3d. Since that time the alarming news from the colonies has only con- 
firmed and increased it, and we are certain now that there is nothing 
to fear concerning abolition; we have also very little anxiety about the 
suppression of the slave trade. "^^ 

Most of the petitions were referred to the Committee on Agriculture 
and Commerce, which was unfriendly to the negro cause. On February 
19th this committee approved a bill which disclaimed any intention on 
the part of the Assembly to interfere with the existing regime in the 
colonies or their commerce, but instructed its reporter to withhold the 
bill unless the question should come up in the Assembly.^^ 

This was the most discreet pohcy the defenders of the trade could 
adopt, for they had everything to lose by precipitating a discussion. 
Some of their partisans, however, could not be restrained. At the 
evening session of February 25th there appeared before the Assembly 
two deputations, one from the "patriotic army" of Bordeaux, the other 
from the "extraordinary deputies of commerce" of the kingdom, who 
presented addresses praying for a specific sanction of the slave trade. 
The orator from Bordeaux presented the stock argument for slavery, 
familiar enough to students of American history, heard now for the first 
time by the Assembly whose watchword was fiber ty: 

9 Proces-verbal, No. 167, 22. 

1' Garran, op. cit., 124. 

" Ibid., I, 127. 

" Gerbaux et Schmidt, op. cit., I, 153-4. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 27 

"The colonies cannot exist without slavery and the slave trade. 
The commerce of France would be annihilated if the colonies ceased to 
exist. Commerce is the necessary agent of navigation, agriculture, and 
the arts. Abolition of slavery and of the slave trade would mean the 
loss of the colonies; the loss of the colonies would strike a mortal blow 
at commerce, and the ruin of commerce would paralyze navigation, 
agriculture, and the arts. " 

He drew an alarming picture of the misery which reigned at Bordeaux 
and the tremendous falling ofif in its commerce — 1419 fewer vessels in 
1789 than in 1788 — and attributed the depression to the uncertainty 
concerning the future of the slave trade. "Five miUion Frenchmen," 
he proceeded, "live only by the commerce which the colonies support. 
They yield an annual income of over two hundred miUions and . . . 
a balance of twenty-four millions in our favor. . . . The slave trade 
is carried on by all the peoples who have possessions in the Antilles; if 
Fi ance ceased to carry on the trade the treatment of the negroes would 
only become the more cruel, for our laws and customs in this trade are 
distinguished by their humane character. . . . Yet a dangerous 
sect . . . under the imposing name of Friends of the Blacks, is spreading 
everywhere the poisoned breath of its doctrines. " 

Then, after a discussion of the alleged danger of a slave insurrection, 
came the supreme effort, the appeal to the Declaration of the Rights 
of Man: 

"You have declared sacred the right of property. But would not 
the property of the colonist be destroyed by the compulsory liberation 
of his slaves? Would the property of the merchants be protected when 
four hundred millions advanced to the colonists have no other security 
than their property and their industry? How could the merchant then 
pay his obUgations to his creditors, the farmer and the manufacturer? 
The complete ruin of the empire would be the result. "^^ 

The deputation offering this address appeared in arms, supported 
by the municipal officers of Bordeaux, two hundred electors of the 
senechaussee of Guienne, and the directors of the Chamber of Commerce.^* 
The extraordinary deputies of commerce^^ followed with a more extended 
attack on the Friends of the Blacks. 

"LeHodey,IX, 82-7. 

" Courrier de Provence, No. 109, 425-6. 

" These were unofficial representatives of various commercial organizations. 
They had received recognition from the Assembly and authorization to cooperate 
with the Committee on Agriculture and Commerce. (Begouen, speech of May 22, 
1791, Moniteur, VIII, 472-3.) 



28 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

It was clear at once that the Assembly was in a very difficult position. 
As Point dujour put it/^ " to reassure commerce without insulting human- 
ity; to reconcile mercantile interests with social interest; to prepare for 
liberty both the men who ought to receive it and those who ought to 
grant it, " this was the insoluble problem forced on the Assembly. 

The President, Talleyrand, replied cautiously that the Assembly 
would make an effort to reconcile these great interests with the principles 
of the new constitution. This reply was received with murmurs by the 
right, and particularly by the deputies from Guienne, the principles of 
the new constitution apparently not being what the petitioners wished 
to have applied to the case.^^ After a short discussion it was voted that 
the addresses should be taken up for discussion on March 1st, along with 
reports which had been received concerning civil disorders in San Do- 
mingo and Martinique. 

On the next day, February 26th, the question was debated at the 
Jacobin Club. Mosneron de I'Aunay, one of the extraordinary deputies 
of commerce, delivered an address, in which he defended the slave trade 
on the ground that statesmanship demands a different standard of morals 
from private conduct, and that in public pohcy the interests of com- 
merce and industry must take precedence over individual rights.^* 
Mirabeau delivered his great speech against the slave trade, or some 
part of it, and made a bad impression.^^ This debate seems to have 
settled the question in the minds of a controlling portion of the Assembly. 

On March 2d the Committee on Reports presented a long ill-digested 
report, and recommended the creation of a colonial committee to give 
the questions further consideration. Cocherel, deputy from San Do- 
mingo, then moved to divide the material, taking up the petitions on the 
slave trade for immediate action and referring to the new committee 
only the reports of civil disorders in the colonies. The Abbe Maury 
supported this motion, claiming immediate action on the petitions was 
necessary to restore confidence to commerce and prevent bankruptcy, 

16 VII, 229. 

" Le Hodey, IX, 29-30. Cf. Gazette de Paris, Feb. 28, 1790, 3: "De I'ouvrage 
et du pain, voila ce que disent les individus; que leur repondre a cela. . . . Quand 
nos Colonies auront renonce a leur mere-Patrie, que nous restera-t-il? Vos loix sub- 
limes." "Dela de grands et beaux raisonnemens, dans lequels on veut tou jours 
ram6ner le systeme du Commerce et le regime Colonial des sublimes dissertations 
d'une metaphysique profonde. " 

** Aulard, La Society des Jacobins, 1, 9-17. 

" Ibid., I, 74. Duquesnoy, op. ciL, II, 440, 446. For the speech see Oeuvres de 
Mirabeau, VII, 121-209. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 29 

but it was lost by a vote of 343 to 310, and the original motion was carried 
without a division.^" The close vote on the motion to discuss the slave 
trade immediately gives no indication of the relative strength of the 
anti-slavery and pro-slavery parties, for the opposition was made up of 
divergent elements, opponents of the slave-trade voting with those of 
its friends who thought it inopportime to open the question at that time. 
Alexander Lameth says that Maury's "intention was to put the Assembly 
in the dilemma of either ahenating public opinion by endorsing slavery 
by law, or raising up against itself all the commercial interests by pro- 
hibiting an abuse which was no doubt odious in itseh, but the sudden 
suppression of which would have brought frightful disasters. "^^ Duques- 
noy puts the same interpretation on the Abbe's motion, adding that he 
said, "I will compel you to decree the freedom of the slaves; it is a neces- 
sary consequence of your principles. Commerce will be ruined; bank- 
ruptcy will follow, and you wiU all be hanged. "^^ Clarkson says^ that 
Mirabeau made a canvass of the Assembly, and found that he could count 
on only about three hundred members. He decided, therefore, not to 
deliver the great speech which had cost Clarkson so much labor. 

The new committee was elected on March 3d. Two colonial depu- 
ties, three colonial proprietors, and five representatives of commercial 
cities found places on it, while none of the prominent opponents of slave- 
holding interests were chosen.^* Of the twelve members only two, Bar- 
nave and Alexander Lameth, were men of prominence, but these two 
were members of the famous triimivirate which led the left center and 
played such a prominent part in the making of the constitution of 1791. 
As Barnave was elected reporter of the colonial committee and gave a 
great deal of attention to its business, the pohcy of the committee may be 
regarded as that of the triumvirate, and the development of the negro 
question from this time bears a close relation to the changing attitude 

2" Proces-verbal, No. 217, 4-7. Journal des debats et des d6crets, No. 190, 4-8. 
Moniteur, III, 513. 

^^ Histoire de I'Assemblee constituante, II, 21, n. 

^- This sounds very much like the incorrigible abbe, who it will be remembered, 
voted against the veto lest it might make the constitution workable. He later proved 
himself a valiant defender of the slave-holding interests, but would probably have 
been perfectly willing to sacrifice them to put the Assembly in an unpopular position. 
" C'est un des hommes les plus profondement scelerats qui existent, " adds Duquesnoy. 
Journal, 11, 438. 

^ Op. ciL, II, 158, 163. 

" Garrett, The French Colonial Question, 48-9. 



30 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

of the left center, the most powerful party in the Assembly, toward larger 
issues. 

The committee made its first report on March 8, 1790. This report 
analyzed the papers referred to the committee as falling into three classes 
— matters concerning the form of colonial government, complaints and 
petitions concerning the trade regulations, and "false interpretation of 
the principal decrees," the last expression referring to the uneasiness 
concerning the application of the Declaration of Rights to the colonies. 
Action concerning the first and second points, the committee advised 
ought to wait for official expression of the desires of the colonies; upon the 
third point the Assembly, since it had made no innovation, ought to say 
so definitely and allay apprehension. They proposed a law, therefore, 
which may be summarized as follows: 

The National Assembly declares that it has never intended to include 
the colonies in the constitution which it has decreed for the kingdom, or 
to subject them to laws which might be inconsistent with their special 
local needs. Consequently, (I) every colony is authorized to make 
known its wish concerning its constitution and laws; (II) in colonies 
where there already exist assemblies freely elected, they may formulate 
the will of the colony; elsewhere assemblies shall be chosen for that pur- 
pose; (III) an instruction concerning the election and organization of 
these assembHes will follow; (IV- VI) plans of local government and sug- 
gested changes in trade laws shall be submitted by these assemblies to 
the National Assembly, and tentative modification of national laws 
may be made by the colonial assemblies. Finally " the National Assem- 
bly declares that it has not intended any innovation in any branch of com- 
merce, direct or indirect, of France and the colonies, places the colonists 
and their property under the special protection of the nation, and de- 
clares criminal anyone who shall attempt to excite any uprising against 
them. "25 

The hall resounded with applause when the report was finished, 
and there was a general demand for an immediate vote.^^ A journalist 
describes the scene which followed: Mirabeau and Petion alone mounted 
the tribune, and the former insisted that he be heard, " but the assembly, 
which knew already what he could say in favor of humanity, morality 
and justice in such questions, appeared rather concerned to support 
agriculture and commerce than to estabhsh principles which time and 

25 Proces-verbal, No. 223. 
2» Moniteur, 111, 554. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 31 

the progress of enlightenment alone can bring without inconvenience 
and without aid. "^^ Duquesnoy's description of the scene is still more 
vivid: "The Count of Mirabeau followed him (Petion) and presented 
himself; new outcries more violent than ever. I cannot depict the fury 
which inspired the Count of Mirabeau; it was painted in his whole 
figure, and I heard him cry to those around him, "Cowardly scoundrels 
that you are!" But in every quarter of the hall was heard: "He wants 
to lose everything! What does he care if France is ruined? He is no 
citizen. He has his money, so now he would let us go. . . . No one 
can say you are not trying to earn your money. "^^ 

The Duke of La Rochefoucauld and the Abbe Sieyes also tried to 
speak, but the uproar continued until the President was compelled to 
put the question of closing the discussion, which passed, and a moment 
later the decree itself was ciarried by an overwhelming vote. Thus with- 
out consideration or debate the Assembly closed the door of hope to the 
opponents of the slave trade.^^ 

" Point du jour, VII, 344. 

*» Op. cit., II, 444-5. 

*' As noted above, the unwillingness of the Assembly to debate the question is to 
be explained, in part at least, by the fact that it had been discussed already in the 
Jacobin Club. Says a contemporary pamphlet: "ne fus-je point etonn6, quand cette 
affaire fut portee a I'Assemblee nationale, de voir qu'elle fut decidee sans avoir €t€ 
prealablement discutee et que M. le comte de Mirabeau ne put jamais obtenir de 
repeter ce qu'il avait dit aux Jacobins; ilpouvait paraitre inutile de perdre un temps 
precieux puisque la majorite des deputes etaient deja fixes sur cette question qu'ils 
avaient pu approfondir dans leurs conferences particulieres. " Motion du Pere 
Girard, Aulard, op. cit., I, 74. This, I believe, was the first of the many occasions on 
which the Jacobin Club supplanted the Assembly as the real battle-ground of parties. 



CHAPTER VI 

Negro Suffrage 

On March 10, 1790> the group of colored citizens whose activity was 
traced in a preceding chapter petitioned the National Assembly for a 
definite statement whether they were included in the decree of March 
8th.^ This petition marks a turning point in our story. The question 
of the slave trade had been disposed of by the law of March 8th, and the 
admission of colored deputies to the Assembly was now recognized to be 
impossible; the next undertaking of the negroes and their friends was to 
secure a guarantee of political rights in the proposed constitution for 
the colonies. Upon this proposal it appeared as though the Friends of 
the Blacks might fairly hope for success. The legal distinctions between 
white and colored subjects which had been maintained in the colonies 
under the old regime were no more marked than the distinctions between 
social groups which were being overthrown in France, and no important 
economic interest was directly involved in their maintenance. The 
prejudice of color being almost unknown in France, there seemed to be 
no logical reason why the free colored people should not obtain full civil 
equality with the whites. The only hope of the opposition, in fact, was 
to induce the Assembly to leave this and similar questions to be settled 
by the colonies themselves. 

The first task of the new committee on colonies after the passage of 
the law of March 8th was to prepare the supplemental Instruction prom- 
ised in that decree. In the preparation of this bill the committee 
accepted advice from both the Massiac Club and the colonial deputies,^ 
but the mulatto lobby received a rebuff, due, says Ratmond, to the in- 
fluence of white colonists who were in constant attendance at the com- 
mittee's sessions.^ 

1 Brette, op. ciL, Rev. fr., XXIX, 400. 

' D6schamps, Les colonies pendant la r6volution, 88-9. Deschamps is evidently 
in error in stating that the Club had been in communication with Barnave since 
February 19th; the date is probably March 19th. He has confused the old "colonial 
committee," i.e., the organization of colonial deputies and alternates, with the new 
committee on colonies. 

' Raimond, Veritable origine, 22. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 33 

The Instruction was reported on March 23d, and taken up for serious 
consideration on the 28th. It provided for the organization of parish 
assemblies to choose the members of colonial assembhes which should 
draw up tentative constitutions for sanction by the National Assembly 
and the king. Of the eighteen sections of which the Instruction consists, 
the fourth only is of interest for the purposes of this study: 

"... all persons, twenty-five years of age or older, owners of real 
estate, or in default of this quahfication being residents of two years' 
standing and tax-payers, shall meet to form the parish assembly. "* 

It should be noted carefully that neither this clause nor anything else 
in the Instruction fixes permanently the qualification for suffrage, or any 
other detail of colonial organization. The purpose of the parish assem- 
blies referred to was simply to elect the colonial assemblies or ratify those 
already in existence. These colonial assemblies were to draw up con- 
stitutions for their respective colonies which would be ratified, if found 
acceptable, not by the parish assemblies but by the National Assembly 
and the king.. The only purpose of the Instruction, therefore, was to 
provide a legal procedure for the organization of what we would caU 
constitutional conventions. This point is of considerable importance, 
for it was afterward persistently asserted that by the phrase "all per- 
sons" in the Instruction the Assembly had conferred the franchise on 
the colored citizens.^ 

< Proces-verbal, March 28, 1790. 

^ Whether the clause was intended to give the free negroes the suffrage for this 
particular election is a more difficult question. The evidence is as follows: Raimond 
says (Veritable origine, 23) that the clause as originally drawn by the committee con- 
tained the word "citizen, " that he, with others, attempted to get it changed to "free 
citizens," or "every citizen, no matter what may be his color, " and that Barnave told 
them that the Assembly knew no distinctions and could not use terms which would 
seem to recognize them, but finally consented to use the expression "all persons." 
While the Instruction was under discussion, Gregoire criticised Article IV as being am- 
biguous, but said he would refrain from forcing the issue because Arthur Dillon, deputy 
from Martinique, had told him that under this article the colored citizens would be 
summoned to the parish assemblies. Cocherel immediately proclaimed that no such 
interpretation would be accepted by the San Domingo deputation. Charles Lameth, 
a colonial proprietor and a member of the Massiac Club, said, "This article satisfies 
everybody, and as a long discussion might give rise to doubts and errors, 1 move that 
the discussion be closed on such an obvious point." Point du jour, VIII, 223-4. 
C£. Le Hodey, X, 39; Moniteur, III, 732-3 ; Journal des debats et des decrets, No. 225, 6; 
Courrier de Provence, VII, 197-9; Gazette de Paris, March 30, 1790, 8. Barnave's 
explanation, given a year later, was that the article was intentionally left ambiguous 
because the committee did not wish to prejudice either side of the case. (Speech of 
May 11, 1791, Moniteur, VIII, 375.) 



34 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

If the other provisions of the Instruction had been observed it would 
have made little difference what interpretation was placed on Article IV. 
The colored citizens, if admitted to the parish assemblies, certainly could 
not have controlled the colonial assemblies, and there the white citizens 
could have fixed the suffrage qualifications for the future. Or, if a 
colonial assembly, after being ratified by the votes of parish assemblies 
from which the colored citizens were excluded, had peaceably prepared a 
constitution and submitted it to the National Assembly for ratification, 
the fact that certain voters had been excluded from the parish assemblies 
would not have invalidated its work. Thus the question could have 
been settled without placing the National Assembly in a position where 
it would have to choose between violation of its principles and alienation 
of much needed support. 

Instead, however, of taking some such course as this, the colonial 
assembly of San Domingo started on a high-handed course of usurpation 
which forced the National Assembly again and again to interfere, giving 
the Friends of the Blacks repeated opportunities to bring the negro 
question to the front and make capital out of the white colonists' mis- 
conduct. 

This colonial assembly was of entirely irregular origin. Separate 
provincial assemblies were elected in 1789 without any legal authoriza- 
tion in each of the three provinces into which San Domingo was divided. 
These three provincial assemblies then agreed upon a plan for the election 
of a colonial assembly. The assembly thus elected completed its organi- 
zation at St. Marc on April 15th, 1790, before the arrival of the March 
laws. It immediately displayed an extraordinary spirit of independence. 
It took the style, "Assembles generate de la partie franqaise de Saint- 
Domingue," and decorated its meeting place with the motto: "Saint- 
Domingue, la loi et le roi; notre union fait notre force." It summoned 
various military and civil ofl&cers to give account of their official conduct 
and ordered that all mail addressed to colonial officials should be opened 
by its President. It created committees on constitution, relations with 
the mother country, military affairs, commerce, finance, and other sub- 
jects, which straightway imitated those of the National Assembly by 
arrogating to themselves the responsibility for the administration of the 
government.^ After the arrival of the law of March 8th the Assembly 
continued its course without regard either to the provisions of the law 

« Garran, op. ciL, 1, 161-70. Barnave, Report of October 11 and 12, 1790, Arch. 
pari., XIX, 546-70. Castonnet des Fois, La perte d'une colonie, 58. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 35 

or the protests lodged by the Governor, the Provincial Assembly of the 
North, and numerous private citizens. All its acts it put into effect at 
once, without sanction of Governor, National Assembly, or king. Final- 
ly, on May 28th it issued a decree providing a constitution for the colony, 
which declared that the colonial assem.bly had the sole right to legislate 
concerning the internal affairs of the colony, subject to no other veto 
than that of the king, and that in regard to relations between the colony 
and the mother country a new contract was needed. These principles 
were developed in terms which came perilously near to a Declaration of 
Independence, but a final article provided that the law should be sub- 
mitted to the king and the National Assembly for acceptance. Later, 
in conformity to the Instruction of March 28th, but "sans rien prejuger 
sur lesdites instructions, " the assembly authorized the parish assemblies 
to vote whether its own existence should continue.'^ 

The voting on this question continued through June, and though 
there were nimierous charges of fraud and a good deal of disagreement as 
to the exact result, there seems to have been no question that the assembly 
was confirmed. Our chief interest in this election lies in the fact that the 
famous Article IV of the Instruction, if interpreted literally, was violated 
by the exclusion of the colored citizens from the parish assemblies, in 
accordance with an interpretation sent to San Domingo by some of the 
colonial deputies in the National Assembly, and promulgated by both 
the Governor and the colonial assembly. This exclusion caused no 
disorder during the elections, but soon afterward several protests were 
issued by the colored citizens, and later the claim was frequently advanced 
that the Assembly of St. Marc could not legally express the wiU of the 
colony, since it had not been ratified in accordance with the Instruction 
of March 28th.» 

After the confirmation of the Assembly matters rapidly approached 
a crisis. The Assembly of St. Marc issued another volley of decrees, 
imposing a special oath of fidelity to itself upon all administrative officers 
and soldiers in the colony, changing the trade laws, and in other ways 
manifesting a spirit of independence. The Governor refused to recognize 
its authority, and on August 7th sent an armed force to dissolve it. 
Unable to resist, the Assembly took an extraordinary step. Eighty-five 
of its members hastily boarded the "Leopard," the one warship whose 
crew had supported them against the Governor, and sailed for France to 

' Bamave, Report previously cited, Arch, pari., XIX, 546-70. 
* Bamave, Report previous cited. Mills, Early Years of the Revolution in San 
Domingo, 66. Raimond, Veritable origine, 23-4. Garran, op. cU., 11, 39-40. 



36 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

appeal to the National Assembly. They arrived about September 19th, 
and the colonial committee, which was busy with reports of the earlier 
disorders, had now to straighten out the tangle of intrigues and make a 
recommendation to the Assembly. 

On October 11th and 12th the committee, through Barnave, sub- 
mitted a very careful report, giving a detailed history of the colonial 
assembly and censuring its conduct severely, though exclusion of the 
free negroes from the suffrage was not mentioned among its offenses. 
He proposed a law which should dissolve the assembly, nullify its acts, 
and order new elections. The eighty-five were to be required to await 
future action with regard to their personal responsibility.^ 

The most significant thing about the proposed law, from the point of 
vievv^ of the present study, is a clause in the preamble: "Whereas, the 
National Assembly has . . . announced in advance . . . the firm 
intention to establish as a constitutional article, that no laws upon the 
status of persons shall be decreed for the colonies, except upon the precise 
and formal demand of their colonial assemblies, ..." This is a very 
extraordinary statement, for the National Assembly had never made 
any such announcement as it implies. The law of March 8th had 
authorized the colonies to make known their wishes concerning their 
constitution and laws, and had announced that the Assembly had no 
intention of subjecting them to laws inconsistent with their local needs, 
but no amount of legal acumen could discover in these provisions a prom- 
ise to prohibit the Legislative Assembly from interfering with the 
"status of persons," except upon colonial initiative. Nor is it certain, 
though it is probable, that the Assembly could now have been induced 
to do so if the question had been presented fairly. At least the proposal 
would have aroused discussion, which the colonial interests were trying 
zealously to avoid. By concealing a constitutional feature in the pre- 
amble of an innocent and relatively unimportant law, to which it was 
entirely irrelevant, the principle of colonial initiative was to be enacted 
into somewhat ambiguous law, and in future it could plausibly be urged 
that the Assembly was under moral obligation to enact legislation to ful- 
fill the pledge. 

This clause could not have withstood criticism, had opportunity for 
it been allowed. But after several members had tried without success 
to secure a postponement till the report and the bill could be printed, 
Gregoire, Petion, and Mirabeau demanded the floor. The appearance 

* Report previously cited, Arch, pari., XIX, 546-70. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 37 

of these Friends of the Blacks put an end to the deliberation. A great 
tumult arose. Cocherel and Gouy d'Arsy, of the San Domingo deputa- 
tion tried to speak, but the Assembly refused to hear either the partisans 
of the negroes or their opponents, and the law was passed by an over- 
whelming vote.^" Unable to secure a hearing from the assembly, the 
Friends of the Blacks resorted once more to the press, and brought out 
several of the most noteworthy polemics of the whole controversy, the 
circulation of which went far to destroy the popularity of Barnave and 
his associates." 

On November 29th, Barnave presented a report on a miniature civil war 
between the planting and the commercial elements in the population of 
Martinique, which was made the basis of a new decree. This law pro- 
vided, among other things, that an entirely new set of instructions for 
the political organization of all the colonies should be drawn up at once, 
that the colonial assembly of Martinique should be suspended, and that 
the king should be asked to send four commissioners to the West Indies 
with 6,000 troops, with full power to suspend all existing authorities and 
provide for the administration of the government of the colonies, pending 
receipt of the new instructions.^^ During the months which followed the 
passage of this law, the assembly gave little attention to the questions 
we have been considering. The colonial committee was busy with the 
task of preparing the new instructions, which proved a greater task than 
was anticipated. On January 20th, 1791, Barnave reported that the 
committee was holding three sessions a week to work on the instruction, 
that the extraordinary deputies of commerce, the colonial deputies and 
other influential colonists were being invited to these sessions, and that 
the work would soon be completed. The four commissioners for Marti- 
nique sailed February 5, and others were appointed for San Domingo in 
March. On April 5th, at Barnave's request the committees on agricul- 
ture and commerce, constitution, and marine were ordered to form a 
joint committee with the colonial committee to complete the instruction 
for the colonies.^^ 

'» Point du jour, XV, 141; Le Hodey XVI, 359; Journal des debats et des d6crets, 
No. 468, 10; Moniteur, VI, 102-7. 

" The Letter to Philanthropists of the Abbe Gregoire, published late in October 
in the Courrier de Provence, No. 208; an undelivered address by Petion, also published 
in the same number; and Brissot's Letter to Barnave, published in the Patriote 
franfais, all reprinted as pamphlets. 

12 Moniteur, VI, 502-4. 

" Moniteur, VII, 179-80; Garrett, op. cit., 85-9; Proces-verbal, Apr. 5, 1791, 18. 



38 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Meanwhile, the mulattoes had made a vain effort to redress their own 
wrongs. Vincent Oge, one of the mulatto deputies who had been seeking 
admission to the National Assembly, slipped out of France in the summer 
of 1790, and went to San Domingo. He immediately wrote to the Gover- 
nor, demanding the enforcement of Article IV of the Instruction of March 
28th. Getting, of course, no favorable reply, he organized an army of 
some six hundred men and started a rebellion. He was easily defeated 
by superior forces and his army scattered. He took refuge in Spanish 
territory, was given up by the Spanish as a criminal and barbarously 
broken on the wheel. Over twenty of his men were hanged, and a large 
number sent to the galleys for life or condemned to other penalties.^* 

No report of this affair was made to the National Assembly. In fact, 
from October, 1790, to May, 1791, the negro question came before the 
Assembly only once. On March 3d the Assembly listened to a letter from 
the mulatto lobby, asking that they be admitted to the bar, and author- 
ized the President to admit them if he found their credentials satisfactory. 
This move evidently caught the colonial deputies off their guard, for no 
objection was made till the next day. Then Arthur Dillon, of Marti- 
nique, lodged a violent protest. "I wish," said he, "to speak in an 
assembly of legislators, not of philosophers, to stop a stealthy maneuver 
which aims to admit to the bar of the Assembly a deputation of the mulat- 
toes. . . . I do not approve of prejudice; I simply ask you to remember 
the decrees you have already passed, and the troops you have ordered 
sent into the colonies. ... If you admit this deputation, you will run 
the risk of having to send twenty times more, and still it would not be 
hard to prove that you will have no colonies. (Murmurs) I declare that 
in my opinion we are going to improve the condition of this class of men. 
, . . You will scorn the addresses of a Society of self-styled philanthro- 
pists, who if they were listened to would reduce France to a desert, a 
Society which has been willing to speak of it, and which is perhaps 
bribed. " Violent protests arose, and the President warned Dillon against 
assertions without proof. Dillon continued: "Do not call me to order. 
I beseech the Assembly, if it desires the happiness of France, the prosper- 
ity of our manufacturers, and if it does not wish our territory flooded with 
blood, to suspend the admission of this delegation. ... If the Assembly 
should admit the mulattoes to its bar, the colonies would be in revolt a 
quarter of an hour after they heard the news. " 

Petion appeared at the tribune; an immediate vote was demanded. 
Petion insisted on speaking. The Abbe Maury said, "I make a motion 

" Garran, op. cit., II, 42-7. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 39 

I have never made before in this Assembly, that the discussion be closed. " 
Mirabeau appeared at the tribune, but before he could speak the Abbe's 
motion had been passed. Petion demanded t,he floor to answer a slander. 
.After a few minutes of utter confusion, with Mirabeau and Petion strug- 
gling to be heard, the petition of the mulattoes were ordered sent to the 
colonial committee, and a motion to adjourn was carried over the protest 
of the President.^^ The next day the Society of the Friends of the 
Blacks demanded that the Assembly either censure Dillon for his imputa- 
tions against them or deprive him of his immunity from prosecution. 
Dillon was absent, but his colleague, Moreau de Saint-Mery, read a 
pamphlet Dillon had written which purported to explain, but really did 
little more than reiterate his charges. Gregoire and Mirabeau attempted 
to speak, and there ensued another long period of disorder, with Mirabeau 
at the tribune facing shouts of "The order of the day!" "Adjourn the 
session! " Finally the President succeeded in putting the motion, and the 
Assembly voted to pass to the order of the day and immediately ad- 
journed.^^ 

Disappointed in their hope of obtaining redress through the Assembly, 
the Friends of the Blacks again resorted to their favorite weapon; they 
published another pamphlet. They reminded Dillon that the Assembly 
had already received a deputation of mulattoes and given them seats of 
honor, yet the colonies had not been plunged into revolt; and they de- 
manded that he enumerate the writings of the society which had caused 
trouble in the islands, prove that the society had sent them there, and 
name the journalists who were probably subsidized to attack the Assem- 
bly's decrees.^'' The challenge received no reply. 

This incident illustrates very well the character of the whole contro- 
versy from December, 1789, to the summer of 1791. The defenders of 
slavery, controlling the Assembly, relied chiefly on constant reiteration 
of the danger of plunging the colonies into revolt or losing them to Eng- 
land, and backed up their arguments with an effective use of disorder, 
while the Friends of the Blacks, who could rarely get a hearing from the 
Assembly, relied on the pamphlet, a weapon in the use of which they ex- 
celled. 

The Friends of the Blacks were subjected to constant vihfication. 
Reference has already been made to the charges circulated in 1789 and 

»s Proccs-verbal, March 4, 1791, 17. 

'« Moniteur, VII, 556-7; Point du jour, XIX, 46-8; Dillon, Motifs de la motion 
faite k I'Assemblee nationale le 4 mars, 1791; Correspondance de Brissot, 263. 

" La Societe des Amis des noirs a Arthur Dillon, depute de la Martinique k I' 
Assemblee nationale. 



40 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

1790 that Mirabeau was in the pay of Pitt, and Clarkson was a British 
spy.^^ In 1790 the Massiac Club sent a representative to London to 
collect information concerning the Friends of the Blacks in that country. 
The envoy convinced himself that there was no truth in the theory that 
the English were trying to get France to act against the slave trade in 
order that they might reap the benefit, and reported that the aims of the 
society were really benevolent and disinterested.^^ Nevertheless the 
slanderous attacks continued, and the Friends of the Blacks were re- 
peatedly accused, without a shred of proof, of sending inflamatory Utera- 
ture into the islands. Another accusation was that Gregoire, Brissot, 
Petion, and Condorcet received large sums of money from Raunond for 
the assistance they gave him.^^ 

Although, as has been stated, the Dillon incident was the only occa- 
sion on which the negro question came before the Assembly between 
October 12, 1790, and May 7, 1791, there was no cessation of poHtical 
activity on the part of either the friends or the foes of the blacks. The 
winter and spring were a period of intense effort on the part of both 
factions, and the attitude of the public underwent a very important 
change. The planting interests realized that their only hope of keeping 
the free negroes from securing poKtical rights lay in their aUiance with 
the commercial cities. The maintenance of this alhance was more 
difficult than it had been during the previous winter, for the maritime 
cities had no such direct interest in the political subjection of the mulat- 
toes as they had had in the slave trade. By parading before them the 
danger of a slave revolt as the inevitable result of any interference with 
existing conditions, and by making much capital out of the Oge affair, 
a certain degree of cooperation was maintained. The "eighty-five" 
alhed themselves with the Massiac Club and worked with them in per- 
fect harmony. At the beginning of 1791 there was formed a commission 
of eighteen, six each from the eighty-five, the Massiac Club, and the 
extraordinary deputies of commerce, to prevent any legislation by the 
National Assembly on the status of persons. This aUiance, however, 
soon broke down because the colonists tried to get the commercial depu- 

'* Cf . Duquesnoy, II, 446-7 : " C'est une opinion tres constante a Paris que le 
Comte de Mirabeau est paye par I'Angleterre pour porter TAssemblee nationale a 
d^crdterl'abolitiondelatraite. . . . Tout est croyable d'un tel homme. Cependant 
. . . il me semble qu'il (i.e., Pitt) connait trop bien les hommes pour ne pas savoir 
que M. de Mirabeau n'a nulle influence dans TAssembl^e nationale. (March, 1790.) 

" Garran, op. cit., I, 103. 

'" Gregoire, Memoires, I, 393. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 41 

ties to support them in demanding too large a degree of independence.^^ 
As usual, the colonial deputies worked independently of the Massiac 
Club, though they cooperated with the eighty-five. At a meeting of 
colonial deputies and members of the eighty-five and members of the 
Provincial Assembly of the North of San Domingo, on February 12th, 
1791, it was voted to try to arouse the commercial cities, and Gouy him- 
self wrote a circular, which, he says, from its character was not suitable 
for republication. Other colonists, individually or as organizations sent 
out similar communications to chambers of commerce and to manu- 
facturers.^^ 

The only one of these circulars which I have been able to consult is 
dated February 14, 1791, and is signed the "Extraordinary Deputies of 
the North and West of San Domingo." It runs as follows: "The colo- 
nies are lost unless all the cities of commerce, the manufacturers, and 
everyone who is interested in their preservation displays in this emergency 
the energy to discomfit the enemies of the state. . , . The freedmen are 
the only barrier between the slaves and the citizens, and in order that 
this barrier may remain unshaken the laws which relate to it must be 
prepared only in the colonies. . . . They (the Friends of the Blacks) 
know that to take from us the exclusive right to determine the status of 
the colored people is ... to condemn to death a milhon people who 
dwell in the Antilles. It is the duty and the interest of all those who 
know these facts to place them under the eyes of the representatives of 
the nation with the same energy which obtained the law of March 
28th. . . . Just as on that occasion, every commercial city and every 
manufacturing city should name extraordinary deputies who will join 
us in bringing to the National Assembly petitions demanding that in 
accordance with the agreement in its decree of October 12th the Assembly 
decree definitely as the first article of the constitutional charter which 
shall unite the colonies indissolubly to France, that the colonies alone 
shall have the right to initiate laws concerning slavery and the colored 
population. "2^ 

These efforts brought only an unsatisfactory response. At Nantes 
the Chamber of Conmierce prepared a petition which was endorsed suc- 

" Garran, op. ciL, II, 77-8. 

^ Gouy d'Arsy, Lettre a ses comm€tans, 3-4; Chabanon des Salines, D6noncia- 
tion de M. I'Abbe Gregoire, 2. 

" Reprinted by Claviere, Adresse de la Societe des Amis des Noirs de Paris a 
I'Assemblde nationale, a toutes les villes, etc., second edition, 158-61. (Piece justicatif 
No. 1.) 



42 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

cessively by the municipal, the district, and the department authorities.^ 
At Bordeaux there was a division of opinion. The Jacobin Club flatly 
refused to support the project. The Chamber of Commerce after a 
good deal of hesitation voted to prepare a petition and send a delegation 
to Paris, then found it impossible to secure sufficient support for either 
project and abandoned them both.^ Gouy says that of forty cities to 
which he wrote, the greater number made no reply, though Havre, 
Abbeville, Dunkirk, and Rouen sent in petitions.^® Chabanon says 
also that the colonists received only slight assistance from the merchants, 
adding that the patriotism of the chambers of commerce was paralyzed 
by the slanderous imprecations of a fanatical society and the "singeries 
imitaiives" of provincial club-members.^^ 

The last slur, which sounds ungracious from a member of the group 
which had been scattering model petitions broadcast, had reference to the 
activity of the Jacobin Clubs of some of the provincial towns, which 
had espoused the cause of the mulattoes. The parent organization at 
Paris, which in spite of Brissot's activity remained loyal to Barnave and 
the Lameths, did nothing to aid either side in the controversy. Indeed 
it appears that colonial questions did not come before the club for dis- 
cussion, after the legislation of March, 1790, until the middle of May, 
1791.28 

But the Club at Angers on March 9th, 1791, sent to all the patriotic 
societies of the kingdom an effective appeal: 

"The revolution has taken place at San Domingo in a way exactly 
opposite to that in France; just as we in Europe are making progress 
toward liberty, at San Domingo the chains of tyranny are being 
strengthened. ... A mulatto was imprisoned in chains last December 
for the sole reason that he had been in France during the revolution and 
doubtless was bringing back with him the principles of equality among 
citizens. " Such an appeal to revolutionary sentiment, blended as it was 
with a good description of the position of the mulattoes as property 
owners and tax-payers, and a reference to the rebellion of Oge as the 

-^ Collection des adresses et petitions des citoyens-commergants de la ville de 
Nantes, Nos. 1 to 4, pp. 1-18. 

25 Petition nouvelle des citoyens de couleur, 13-15. (Piece justicatif No. 1.) 
Letter of Baux, extraordinary deputy of commerce from Bordeaux, Moniteur, VIII, 
462. 

^* Gouy, Lettre a ses commetans, 4. 

" Chabanon, op. cit., 2-3. 
" -^ Claviere stated that skilful men had the secret of keeping the question out of 
the assembly of Jacobins. {Op. cit., ix.) Cf. Correspondance de Brissot, 265. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 43 

inevitable result of white oppression, could not fail to find a response. 
Within six weeks replies were received at Angers from thirteen cities, 
while at least six or seven other Jacobin Clubs or similar organizations 
sent petitions direct to the National Assembly or published them as 
pamphlets.^® 

Claviere prepared at this time a long memoir, the most elaborate 
document the Friends of the Blacks had yet published, reviewing the 
history of the agitation, and defending the position of the Society. This 
was published in the Courrier de Provence as well as in pamphlet form, 
sent to all the members of the National Assembly, and widely distributed 
elsewhere, four hundred copies being sent to the Jacobin Club of Paris 
to be placed in the hands of its members.'" 

All this material as it came to the National Assembly was referred 
to the colonial committee, where it was likely to do little good and little 
harm, but the effect of the agitation showed itself clearly enough when 
the question at last came before the Assembly. 

29 Claviere, op. cit., 178-236. 

'" Claviere, op. cit. Letter of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks to the Jaco- 
bin Club of Paris, Apr. 8, 1791, Correspondance de Brissot, 265. Gregoire, speech of 
May 11, 1791, Moniteur, VIII, 366. 



CHAPTER VII 
The Law of May 15, 1791 

The long-delayed opportunity of the Friends of the Blacks came on 
May 7th, 1791, when De Lattre, in the name of the combined committees 
on commerce and agriculture, constitution, marine, and colonies, reported 
the first instalment of the great Instruction, or colonial constitution, 
which had been promised by the Law of November 29, 1790. The bill 
embraced two distinct proposals. The first was contained in Article I, 
which read as follows: "The National Assembly decrees, as an article 
of the constitution, that no law concerning the status of persons may be 
made by the Corps Legislatif, for the colonies, except on the exact and 
formal demand of the colonial assembhes. " This, it will be noted, sim- 
ply placed the well-known preamble of the law of October 12, 1790, in 
the form of constitutional law. The other fifteen articles provided for 
the immediate convocation of an assembly of twenty-nine delegates from 
the West Indian colonies on the httle island of St. Martin, for the purpose 
of drawing up a law to regulate the civil and pohtical status of the free 
colored people. Article XIV provided as follows: "when the status of 
the free mulattoes and negroes has been definitely determined by the 
Corps Legislatif on the recommendation of the Committee of St. Martin,, 
the first article of the present decree will have been fully executed, and 
future legislatures may not institute a new proposal relative to the 
status of any persons whatever. " 

The report accompanying the bill set forth that the combined com- 
mittees had given careful attention to the numerous petitions received 
from the mulattoes, and recognized the necessity of doing something in 
their behalf. At the same time, the numerous disturbances 
in the colonies, which were clearly due to uncertainty concerning 
the Assembly's attitude, demanded that action be taken immediately 
to set all doubts at rest, without waiting for the colonial constitution 
to be completed. "Those who wish to overthrow the colonies," said 
the reporter, "who wish to spread conflagration there, who wish perhaps 
to wrest them away from us, have tried to persuade the colonists that 
the law of March 8th was only provisional, and that that of October 
12th would be repealed. . . . The first article of the new decree has 
been initiated by the wish of the commercial interests of France, ex- 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 45 

pressed by the extraordinary deputies, by the cities of Nantes, Havre, 
Dunkirk, Rouen, Dinan, and an infinite number of addresses and peti- 
tions. It is, moreover, merely the fulfillment of the promise made on 
October 12th, 1790." 

On the other hand, the reporter argued, it was important that the 
colonies should be required to use their initiative at once, in order that 
the status of the free colored population might be rendered uniform and 
their condition ameHorated. The report closed with an urgent plea for 
haste which sounded very specious in view of the extreme dehberation 
with which the committees had acted,^ 

The Abbe Gregoire was on the floor at once. "This bill embraces 
objects of the greatest importance, " said he. "It is a question of annihi- 
lating the Declaration of the Rights of Man, of reducing one class of men 
to slavery and dehvering another to oppression. After waiting four 
months for this proposal, we can very well wait a few days longer. I 
demand that the action be postponed and the report printed. " Moreau 
de St. Mery objected; Petion demanded that he (Moreau) be given time 
to defend this "horrible " decree. " I am not surprised, " replied Moreau , 
" to hear the bill called horrible by those who are setting themselves up 
in pubHc opposition, not only to all laws which are proposed concerning 
the colonies, but to those which have been passed, which they refer to as 
criminal acts on your part. . . . All the evils which afflict the colonies 
come from these same hands. . . . Do you claim that the constitution 
which you have given France will do for the colonies? You must re- 
nounce your wealth and your commerce or declare frankly that the Dec- 
laration of Rights does not apply to the colonies. " Petion responded 
in a speech of considerable length, arguing that the proposal to leave the 
fate of the mulattoes to an assembly of whites was exactly the same plan 
as that proposed at the beginning of the Revolution, to leave the clergy 
and nobles to decide separately on their own privileges. Then ensued 
an unusually long period of violent disorder, Dillon, Malouet, and seven 
or eight others demanding the floor, while others shouted for an imme- 
diate vote. Finally the President put the question of postponement, and 
the report was laid over till the llth.^ The system of muzzled voting 
had broken down at last, and the Friends of the Blacks had won their 
first triumph. 

The great debate opened on May 11th, and raged with scarcely an 
interruption for five days. During this time every aspect of the mulatto 

1 De Lattre, Report of May 7, 1791, Arch, pari., XXV, 636. 

2 Moniteur, VIII, 333-6. Point du jour, XXII, 71-4. Le Hodey, XXV, 262-7. 



46 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

question was thoroughly ventilated. The positions of the various par- 
ties have already been stated so fully, however, that only a small part 
of the discussion need be reproduced. 

Gregoire opened the debate. "It is at last permitted," said he, 
"for the defenders of the colored citizens to raise their voices in this As- 
sembly!" He began by castigating the reporter for his failure to men- 
tion any of the numerous addresses submitted by the Friends of the 
Blacks and by the provincial Jacobin Clubs, while he gave so much 
weight to the petitions of the commercial cities on the other side. Then 
he defended the Society from the charge of fomenting disorder in the 
colonies, countering with the charge that the first real source of the 
trouble in San Domingo was the now well known letter of August 12, 
1789,^ and many others which followed it, stirring up animosity against 
the free colored people. A second cause he found in the ambiguity of 
the law of March 28, 1790, and a third in the ambitious rivalries of the 
white colonists and the vacillating course of the National Assembly, 
which took away on November 29th what it gave on March 8th and 
October 12 th. The usual plea for the inherent rights of the mulattoes 
followed, and the oration closed with a reference to Oge, martyr to the 
love of liberty. "If Oge is blameworthy, so are we all, and if he who 
demands liberty perishes for it on the scaffold, all good Frenchmen de- 
serve it equally with him. . . . His blood cries out for vengeance, but 
I must restrain myself — it is not for a minister of the God of Peace to 
demand it."* 

Clermont-Tonnerre supported the bill in a temperate speech, basing 
his argument chiefly on the impolicy of one people trying to govern 
another. "The very nature of things," said he, "is opposed to the 
fiction that the two peoples are one; they can be united only by affection, 
and afifection can only exist from community of interests; interests can- 
not be reconciled except as the weaker party finds in the form of organi- 
zation a counterweight to the threat of subjection. "^ As Barnave stated 
the same point, the question was not whether the negroes should be free 
or not, whether the free colored men should be active citizens or not, 
but whether the initiative in dealing with the question should be left to the 
colonial assemblies. Clermont-Tonnerre 's argument was the powerful 
argument of Calhoun for a "states' rights" solution of the problem, 
fortified by a rigid constitution. But it was squarely opposed to the 

' Quoted above, pp. 14-5. 

* Moniteur, VIII, 366-7. Le Hodey, XXV, 381-93. 

» Moniteur, VIII, 367-8, 370-1. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 47 

passion for unification and centralization which was the very soul of the 
Revolution, and Clermont-Tonnerre's associates in the defense of the bill 
did not care or did not dare to go so far. 

Malouet followed with one of the most thoughtful speeches in the 
entire debate. Clermont-Tonnerre's argument, he pointed out, would 
break down the whole system of commercial regulation and lead to the 
loss of the colonial trade. Malouet sought a middle ground between that 
position and the position of Gregoire, which would subject the colonies 
to the whole of the constitution of France. To bring the colonies 
under the new political principles of France, he urged, the conditions 
of life there must be somewhat similar. But there was no such similarity. 
Soil, climate, products, number and classes of men, habits, morals, every- 
thing was different. It would be useless to discuss the morality of slav- 
ery; no man possessed of sense and morals would defend it. But slavery 
could not be abolished without bringing on terrible disasters; it was there- 
fore impossible to apply the Declaration of Rights without exceptions. 
"But, " said he, "if we are forced to forego the apphcation and contradict 
the spirit of these principles in one place, it is very dangerous to go back 
to the principles and apply them to the colonies as a rule of action in 
other matters. The constitutional principles for the colonies must be 
specially determined. . . . And if you recognize the necessity of not 
subordinating them to your general principles, you cannot refuse to let 
them dehberate concerning the exceptions, for they know better than 
you the differences between their domestic and administrative regime 
and yours. "® 

This argument touched the Friends of the Blacks in a vital spot. 
By denying the moraHty of slavery and at the same time endorsing its 
continuance on prudential grounds, they were destroying the force of 
the ethical argument as applied to the mulattoes, and this, in the last 
analysis, was the only argument they had. 

The debate of the 12th was dull, the only feature being the way in 
which Robespierre took up the threat of the loss of the colonies and flimg 
it back in the teeth of the colonists: 

" 'You will lose the colonies,' you say, 'unless you deprive the 
colored citizens of their rights.' And why will you lose the colonies? 
Because one portion of the citizens, the so-called whites, wish to enjoy 
exclusively the rights of citizenship. And they it is who dare to say to 
you by the lips of their deputies, ' Beware the results of this discontent! ' " 
«Moniteur, VIII 367. 



48 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

After commenting on the impolicy of yielding to threats, Robespierre 
went on to suggest that the same argument could be used on behalf of 
the mulattoes, who might find as great an inspiration in the defense of 
their rights as the whites in the defense of their pride.'' This prophecy 
was fully justified a few months later. 

The discussion was closed on a motion to lay the entire project of the 
committee on the table. After an unseemly brawl over the statement of 
the question, during which the gallery manifested strong sympathy with 
the radicals, the motion was beaten by a vote of 378 to 298, and the 
conservatives had won the first skirmish. During this session there was 
a great breaking up of parties, Barnave, probably for the first time, 
getting heavy applause from the right, and the Jacobin Club splitting 
badly at the roll-call.^ 

Most of the 13 th was wasted in petty wrangling, but one notable 
contribution was made to the discussion. This was the discourse of the 
Abbe Maury, who spoke at great length and with such effectiveness that 
he received hearty applause from both sides of the house, and the Assem- 
bly, by an almost unanimous vote, ordered his speech to be printed. 
The Abbe called attention first to the way both sides were dodging the 
real issue, slavery. The partisans of the mulattoes, he claimed, were 
really interested in this question because the enfranchisement of the 
mulattoes would be a first step toward the liberation of the slaves; while 
their adversaries, instead of boldly meeting that issue, were pretending 
not to oppose the enfranchisement of the mulattoes at all, but merely the 
proposal to do it by authority of the National Assembly. Maury's 
position was that it was both just and expedient that the mulattoes should 
be excluded from the suffrage, and in supporting this position he brought 
the debate down for the first time from the high levels of political theory 
to the ground of practical politics. He made no reference to the prejudice 
of color, and painted no picture of threatening rebellion, but argued that 
the newly freed slave was incapable of casting an intelligent ballot. He 
pointed out the danger that the colonies might fall under the control 
of the freedmen, and the certainty of consequent misgovernment and 
emigration of the whites. Finally, he showed that with the important 
colonies already seething with revolution the time was inopportune for 
the introduction of radical reforms. In spite of the Abbe's extreme 
unpopularity, the practical common sense of his remarks made more 

^Moniteur, VIII, 381-3. 

•Moniteur, VIII, 378-85. Le Hodey, XXV, 421-47. Point du jour, XXII, 
146-52. Gazette de Paris, May 15, 1791, 2. Amiduroi.May 13, 1791,531-2, 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 49 

impression on the Assembly than did the fluent speech of the well beloved 
Barnave.^ 

The effect of this speech was weakened, however, by the reply of 
Monneron, deputy from the tiny Isle of Bourbon in the East Indies, who 
met the Abbe with argument as practical as his own. Monneron claimed 
that in his colony, where there was a large proportion of mulattoes, the 
sentiment was strongly in their favor, and that the colonial assembly 
urged the most favorable legislation in their behalf. He further asserted 
that in the Portuguese and Enghsh colonies free mulattoes held both 
municipal and ecclesiastical office.^" Naturally, this speech was regarded 
by the other colonial deputies as little less than treason.^^ 

The remainder of this session was devoted to parliamentary wrangling 
and tumultuous voting. Moreau de St. Mery proposed an amendment 
to prohibit the Corps Legislatif from initiating legislation relative to 
" slaves, " instead of " status of persons. " Robespierre made a desperate 
plea that at least the shameful word be omitted. "From the moment 
you pronounce the word 'slave' you will have pronounced your own dis- 
honor!" he cried. "Let the colonies perish if they must cost you your 
happiness, your glory, your liberty." Moreau finally consented to 
accept the expression "persons not free" in place of "slaves," and thus 
amended the article was adopted without serious opposition: 

"The National Assembly decrees, as an article of the constitution, 
that no law on the status of persons not free can be made by the Corps 
Legislatif for the colonies except upon the formal and spontaneous 
demand of the colonial assembly. "^^ 

This was an easy victory for the colonists, but the 14th opened with 
a stinging defeat. A letter from the delegation of mulattoes, asking 
again that they be heard at the bar of the Assembly, was read by one of 
the secretaries, and after a brief but heated debate the request was 
granted. After a few moments of disorder, consequent on this decision 
three mulattoes were introduced. Raimond, acting as the spokesman 
of the delegation, described the situation of the free colored population 
of the colonies, their numbers and wealth, the disabilities and injustices 
from which they suffered, and the persecution which had been instituted 
against them in San Domingo since the arrival of the deputies' letter of 

» Moniteur, VIII, 390-4. Ami des patriotes II, 268. 
" Moniteur, VIII, 394. 

'^ Cf. Gouy d'Arsy, Lettre a ses commetans, 10, for a story that Monneron's atti- 
tude was due to his having married a mulatto. 

« Proces-verbal, May 13, 1791, 8. Moniteur, VIII, 395-6, 397. 



50 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

August 12, 1789. The argument that race equality would lead to slave 
rebellion he answered by showing that the mulattoes, being themselves 
slave-owners and forming the sole militia of the islands, were reaUy the 
chief safeguards against a revolt.^^ 

Between the sessions of the 14th and the 15th it is evident that an 
effort was made to get the moderates of the two parties to agree on a 
compromise along the lines suggested in Maury's speech of the 13th. 
RewbeU opened the discussion on the 15th by offering an amendment to 
the effect that the Corps Legislatif should never dehberate on the status 
of colored people not bom of free parents, except upon the initiative of 
the colonies, but that colored people born of free fathers and mothers 
should be admitted to the suffrage if they possessed the other necessary 
quahfications. This amendment was utterly illogical and futile, but 
had the advantage of appearing to split the difference between the claims 
of the two parties at a moment when the rank and file were worn out with 
wranghng. It was supported by all the leaders of the party which sup- 
ported the mulattoes, except Robespierre, who fought to the last for the 
eligibility of all the freedmen. It was opposed by the colonial deputies, 
by Barnave, and by nearly aU the leading supporters of the committee's 
project, but evidently was received with more favor by their followers, 
for after various amendments had been voted down the amendment 
passed, and the long fight was over. The demand for a roll call was 
rejected by a very large majority, and the house adjourned amid great 
applause from the galleries.^* 

" Moniteur, VIII, 399-401. Le Hodey, XXV, 491-509. Point du jour, XXII, 
179-92. 

"Moniteur, VIII, 403-4. 



CHAPTER VIII 
The Closing Days or the National Assembly 

The Friends of the Blacks had inflicted a defeat upon their adver- 
saries, but had won very Httle for their friends. As a moral victory the 
vote of May 15th seemed to mean a great deal, but as a practical political 
reform it was insignificant. The proportion of the mulattoes affected 
by it was very small, probably no more than one-twentieth if they were 
required to prove their eligibiUty,^ whila the political rights of the rest 
of the free colored people were removed from the jurisdiction of future 
National Assemblies, except upon the initiative of the colonies. 

Moreover, even for this small proportion, the fight for the suffrage 
had just begun. The Friends of the Blacks were to learn that a legisla- 
tive victory may mean but little when the executive is in sympathy with 
the defeated party. The political difiiculty which arose from its lack 
of control over the ministry the Assembly had sought to overcome by 
extending the function of its committees into the field of administration, 
but it had failed to provide an effective means of controlling the commit- 
tees themselves. In consequence a remarkable series of obstacles now 
interfered with the promulgation of the new law. The first of these de- 
lays, however, was the fault of the Assembly itself. On May 17th the 
Assembly voted that the four committees should prepare an "instruc- 
tion" to accompany the law of May 15 th. The purpose was to explain 
the true intentions and motives of the Assembly and make it clear that 
no promises had been broken, and thus to offset the effect of the criti- 
cisms which would be levelled at the law by its opponents. It was even 
seriously suggested that the departure of all vessels bound for the colo- 
nies should be suspended for four days, "in order that the same vessels 
which carry error thither may also carry truth. "^ 

On the 21st the famous economist, Dupont de Nemours, who was a 
member of the joint committee, reported that after several attempts it 
had proved impossible to secure a quorum and that those members who 
did attend had asked him to prepare an instruction himself. This in- 
struction, which was adopted May 29th, was a weak and rather undigni- 
fied attempt to refute some of the chief objections advanced against the 

» Cf. R6v. de Paris, VIII, 293. 

* Moniteur, VIII, 522-3. Proces-verbal, No. 653, 2. 



52 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

law of May 15th. The most interesting point in it is the way in which 
Dupont de Nemours attempted to reconcile the law of May 13th, con- 
cerning slavery, with the principles of the Assembly: 

"It has recognized that the men who are charged with the labor of 
cultivation in the colonies are, by lack of enhghtenment and by their 
expatriation, in a state of prolonged minority which seems to demand that 
the protection of the law be modified with respect to them, just as with 
children, by the immediate authority of the family government, and 
which seems to necessitate admitting into the colonial constitution cer- 
tain exceptions to its general principles."^ 

The failure of the four committees to get a quorum for the purpose of 
drawing up this instruction is the first indication of a policy of obstruc- 
tion which was pursued all summer with so much success that the law of 
May 15 th was never sent officially to any of the colonies, and the instruc- 
tion of May 29th, so far as a committee of the Convention could learn, 
was never published in San Domingo at all.^ Again and again the 
Assembly tried to hasten the sending of the law and the departure of the 
civil commissioners provided for in the law of November 29th, and in- 
variably some pretext for delay was found.^ On August 22d, the de- 
crees still being void of ofificial recognition, six new members were added 
to the colonial committee in the hope of arousing it to greater activity, 
and the Minister of Marine was ordered to submit an immediate report 
concerning the causes of the delay.^ 

The report which the Minister submitted the next day gives us a 
glimpse of the network of intrigues which were woven against the law. 
First, it had been decided to wait for the instruction of May 29th, then 
for the final report on the colonial constitution. The latter law, after 
being crowded through the Assembly with imseemly haste on Jime 14th, 
was not sanctioned tiU July 10th, having been delayed in coming to the 
king from the Assembly. Then there was trouble in getting it printed, 
so that it did not come to the Minister of Marine till July 25 th. Then 
the commissioners who had been waiting for months to start to the islands 
demanded a further delay, and when it was refused they resigned. Three 
new commissioners were appointed, and these had just gone to Brest 
to set sail.'^ A demand for a report from the colonial committee as to 

3 Moniteur, VIII, 530. 
* Garran, op. ciL, II, 91. 
» Proces-verbal, May 29, June 10, 1791. 

° Moniteur,IX, 459-61. Of the six new members, five were in sympathy with the 
law of May 15th, the sixth being, curiously enough, Charles Lameth. 
' Proces-verbal, August 23, 1791, 214. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 53 

the cause of the continual delay evoked a very indefinite reply from Bar- 
nave, who stated that he had taken no part in the work of the committee 
since May 15 th, though he had not resigned as chairman lest he seem to 
be using his influence to prevent the law from being executed.* 

On August 29th four of the new members of the colonial committee 
resigned from it, explaining that while they were added to the committee 
to aid in the enforcement of the law of May 15th, the only question it 
discussed was how to secure the repeal of that law. The new members, 
being in the minority, could effect no change in the committee's methods, 
and offered a pathetic complaint of the rudeness of their reception there. 
On receipt of this report the session of the Assembly became extremely 
stormy, and an eflfort was made to secure a complete renewal of the com- 
mittee but in vain.^ 

Meantime, the question continued to be agitated outside the Assem- 
bly. Immediately after the passage of the law of May 15th all the 
deputies from the West Indian colonies joined in a letter announcing to 
the National Assembly their intention to absent themselves indefinitely 
from its sessions. Their letter was extremely haughty in tone,^" and 
excited sharp criticism, but received no ofiicial notice. On June 10th, 
after a discusion of two or three hours, the Jacobin Club voted on motion 
of Danton to suspend those of the colonial deputies who were members 
of the Club till they should return to their post of duty.^^ After the 
flight of the king the colonial deputies returned to the Assembly ,^^ but 
they took practically no part in the discussion of colonial affairs. Gouy 
d'Arsy issued a number of pamphlets, and obtained some publicity by 
offering his colonial property for sale at what purported to be a great 
sacrifice.13 A pamphlet was distributed entitled "List of names of those 
who have voted for England against France on the question whether the 
Assembly should sacrifice the colonies. "^^ Petitions for the repeal of 

«Moniteur, IX, 474. 

sMoniteur, IX, 537-8; Le Hodey XXXIV, 435. 

^° "Li ministri plenipotenziari d'una Potenza assoluta e sovrano non potevano 
scrivere di piu ad un congresso." Kovalevsky, Dispacci degli Ambasciatori Veneti, 
1,264. 

" Aulard, op. ciL, II, 494. Gouy d'Arsy, Extrait logographique de la seance des 
Amis de la Constitution de Paris, duVendredi, lOjuin, 1791. 

^2 Lettre de MM de Gouy et de Raynaud a I'Assembl^e nationale a I'occasion de 
r evasion du roi et de la famille royale. 

" Gouy, Diverses Pieces, etc. 

"Garran, (>/'.«/., II, 91. 



54 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FEENCH REVOLUTION 

the law of May 15th began to pour in, chiefly of course from the com- 
mercial cities.^^ 

The other side, having won the victory, was naturally less active 
but the Directory of the Department of the Gironde, and the Jacobin 
Club and other organizations of Bordeaux congratulated the Assembly 
and offered the services of eight hundred volunteers to go to the colonies 
to help enforce the law of May 15th. Similar offers were received from 
Lorient and Brest.^^ 

Then alarming reports began to arrive from the colonies, particularly 
from San Domingo. The Governor wrote : 

''The most frightful civil war may result from the present attitude of 
pubhc opinion. The first part of the law, relative to the slaves and freed- 
men, does not reassure them. They look upon that as merely an ar- 
rangement which another law may repeal just as this one has repealed 
those which preceded it. Confidence in the National Assembly is en- 
tirely destroyed. ... I fear that this law, if it is not repealed, will 
cause the shedding of the blood of thousands of citizens, and that those 
whose interests it is intended to favor may be its victims. "^'' 

Later reports were to the effect that the fortifications in San Domingo 
were being put in order and preparations made for armed resistance if the 
enforcement of the law were attempted.^^ 

The petitions and other communications concerning this law were 
referred, of course, to the colonial committee, which remained inactive 
throughout the summer. Finally, on the 5th and 7th of September 
the question was reopened by complaints against the comjnittee, and 
Barnave made a long speech, in which he outlined the principles of his 
entire colonial poHcy. He argued with much effect that the colonies, 
unified and strengthened by a common purpose to defend their autonomy 
in domestic affairs would, unless the Assembly reversed its poHcy, wrest 
from succeeding legislatures not only the repeal of the Act of May 15th 
but also their commercial liberty, which would mean virtually the loss 
of the colonies. "There is then," said he, "only one way to save the 
interests of the nation; it is at the same time with one hand to give the 
colonists what is necessary for their internal security, and in the other 
hand to retain to retain that which is necessary for the commercial in- 

" Deliberation des 4 comit^s, Arch, pari., XXX, 592 ff.; Kovalevsky, op. cit., 
I, 273. 

>« Proces-verbal, No. 660, 8; No. 668, 10, 12; No. 678, 31-4. 

1' Letter of Blanchelande, dated July 3, 1791, read in National Assembly, August 
22, 1791 , Moniteur, IX, 460. 

" Speech of Barnave, September 24, 1791, Moniteur, IX, 758-60. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 55 

terests of the mother country. ... At the moment when you bring 
tranquihty and security to their souls, they will accept submissively an 
unchangeable constitutional law which will assure the prosperity of 
your commerce. " He closed by moving that the committee be given ten 
days to make its report on the petitions, which was voted.^^ 

On the 23d Barnave presented the final report of the colonial com- 
mittee. With characteristic audacity he omitted all reference to the 
petitions on which a report had been so urgently demanded but dwelt at 
length on the alarming situation in the colonies. The indignation of 
the colonists was due, he said, not only to the results which were appre- 
hended from the law of May 15th, but from their fear that the precedent 
created by the passage of a law concerning their domestic affairs would 
open the way for an attack by the Legislative Assembly on slavery. 
Hence it would not suffice to repeal the obnoxious law; some assurance 
for the future must be given. Therefore the committee recommended 
two constitutional laws: first, that legislation concerning the external 
affairs of the colonies should be entirely within the jurisdiction of the 
Legislative Assembly, subject of course to the royal veto; second, that 
laws concerning the status of persons should be made by colonial assem- 
blies and taken directly to the king for sanction without consulting the 
Legislative Assembly at all. The whole idea of legislation by the Nation- 
al Assembly on the initiative of the colonies, which had been the chief 
item in the committee's program for a year and a half, was now abandoned 
and a true federal system was proposed in its stead.^" 

Practically all the session of the 24th was consumed in the debate on 
this proposal, which covered much the same ground as the discussion 
in May. As Robespierre pointed out, no reason was now given for re- 
pealing the law of May 15th which had not been considered when the 
law was passed, and no results had followed the law which had not then 
been anticipated. The Assembly's rule was never to reconsider its 
actions simply because of a change in the strength of parties. Moreover 
there was grave doubt whether the Assembly, having already declared 
the constitution complete, could legally place any further limitations on 
the power of the Corps Legislatif. But the old conservative majority 
which had been broken up by the compromise of May 15th was once 
more in the saddle, and after the usual scenes of disorder and amid vio- 
lent demonstrations of disapproval from the galleries all objections were 
overruled and the committee's project was adopted.^^ 

" Moniteur, IX, 612-5; Proces-verbal, September 7, 14-15. 

" Moniteur, IX, 756, 758-60. 

" Moniteur, loc. ciL; Proces-verbal, Sept. 24, 1791. 



CHAPTER IX 
Analysis of the National Assembly's Work 

The legislation just described closes the record of the Constituent 
Assembly's dealings with the most flagrant violation of revolutionary 
principles with which it had to deal. Four laws embodied its contribu- 
tion to the solution of the problem of human bondage — the law of March 
8 th, 1790, which placed slave property definitely under the protection 
of the law; that of October 12th, 1790, which by implication promised 
the colonists the initiative in all questions relative to the "status of 
persons"; that of May 12th, 1791, which made the promise definite, so 
far as slaves were concerned; and that of September 24th, 1791, which 
removed all questions concerning slavery and the privileges of free negroes 
from the jurisdiction of French legislative assemblies and entrusted 
them to the colonies themselves. 

So far, therefore, as the Constituent Assembly is concerned, the 
work of the Friends of the Blacks must be pronounced a failure, and the 
triiunph of conservatism complete. The Friends of the Blacks had 
started out with a program by no means radical. They dehberately 
put aside every effort to obtain for the negro slaves any benefit except a 
vague future "amelioration," which they never attempted to defime. 
They accepted without protest a law guaranteeing the perpetuity of 
slavery. They limited their campaign to two proposals. Of these, the 
first, the abolition of the African slave trade, was a reform so sane, just, 
and practical that within twenty-five years it found almost unanimous 
acceptance from the desperately conservative Europe of the Restoration 
era. The second was the abolition of political inequalities among free 
citizens of France whose qualifications for a share in their own govern- 
ment differed only in accordance with their race. This latter measure, 
considering that race prejudice was almost unknown in France, was 
certainly a far less drastic application of the philosophy of equality than 
was, for instance, the abolition of nobility or the suppression of the guilds. 
Surely then the failure of the Friends of the Blacks cannot be explained 
by excessive radicalism. How shall we reconcile the conservatism of the 
Assembly in handhng these colonial questions with the radicalism it 
professed and practiced when more important issues were at stake? 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 57 

To answer this question it will be necessary to look more closely at 
the party situation within the Assembly. The reader who is familiar 
with revolutionary history will have noticed that all the prominent 
participants in the discussion of the negro question, except Maury and 
Malouet, were members of the Left or revolutionary party. They were 
all moved at first by a common desire for the overthrow of the abuses of 
the old regime, but as the preliminary work of destruction was com- 
pleted and the Assembly turned to the larger task of reconstruction a 
division arose, and the party separated into two mutually hostile groups. 
The larger group, led by the triumvirate, Barnave, Alexander Lameth, 
and Duport, and containing such men as Talleyrand, La Fayette, and 
Sieyes, was moderate and monarchical. This group, sometimes known as 
the Left Center, came to represent the property interests of France, as 
the Right represented the privileged classes of the old regime. As it 
became increasingly apparent that the breakdown of the government 
constituted a peril to property the group grew increasingly conservative. 
As this took place, however, the extreme Left grew increasingly radical. 
This party was led by Petion and Robespierre within the Assembly, and 
Brissot, Loustallot, and Camille Desmoulins outside. Between them 
and the dominant faction the most conspicuous issues were those which 
arose in connection with the property qualifications for suffrage and for 
eligibility to the Legislative Assembly. Within the Assembly the 
moderates were always by far the stronger, and the constitution of 1791 
was almost entirely their work. But outside the rising tide of democracy 
was undermining their influence. The crisis came in connection with the 
flight of the king, which spHt the Jacobin Club and made repubhcans out 
of the radicals, but temporarily strengthened the conservative elements 
in the Assembly. 

This story is familiar to all students of the history of the -Revolution, 
but surprisingly little attention seems to have been paid to the connec- 
tion between the divergence of these revolutionary parties and the 
development of sentiment on the colonial negro question. For this was 
the question v/hich first brought the interests of property into clear 
opposition to those of humanity, and was a prime factor in the breakup 
of the Left and the loss of its leaders' hold on the populace. 

Take the case of Barnave for instance. He started as a violent 
radical. "Le sang, etait-il done si pur?" was his reply to the denuncia- 
tion of the murder of innocent men by the mobs of 1789. In a manner 
worthy of Marat he accused the Monarchical Club of giving the people 
poisoned bread, and he fought a duel with Cazales to uphold the dignity 



58 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

of his extreme radicalism. But on February 25th, 1790, he spoke in the 
Jacobin Club against the abolition of slavery,^ and this speech in all 
pHTobabihty won him his place on the colonial committee. From the 
time that he accepted the chairmanship of that committee his divergence 
from the democrats is clear. As shown above, he came into conflict with 
the Friends of the Blacks when he made his first report in March, 1790, 
and every act of his committee thereafter widened the breach. Likewise 
the Lameths, one of whom as noted above was a colonial proprietor, were 
actively identified with the defense of the property rights of the colonists 
from revolutionary attacks. In general the fine between bourgeois and 
democratic interests which has been traced by Aulard and others in con- 
nection with the suffrage question and the question of the deposition of 
Louis XVI will be found to correspond to the line between the advocates 
and the opponents of humanitarian legislation in behalf of the negroes.^ 

Carrying the analysis forward into the spring of 1791, we find that the 
Jacobin Club of Paris refused to discuss the negro question, though the 
provincial branches were lining up rapidly in favor of the mulattoes. 
The question first came before the Club on May 11th, 1791, when Brissot 
opened it with a long speech, full of personahties and sarcasm directed 
against Barnave. Barnave replied with the same speech which he de- 
livered the next morning in the Assembly, and Petion spoke in rebuttal. 
Barnave won the victory, though it was noted that his support came 
from friends of the orator and not of his cause.^ 

At the session of May 13th Raimond was allowed to speak, and made 
the same remarks, in substance, as he delivered the next morning before 
the Assembly. An "Armenian or Turk" also spoke in favor the m_ulat- 
toes and reminded Barnave and the Lameths that one false step may cost 
the fruits of fifty years of virtue. Robespierre made a bitter attack on 
Barnave and the Lameths. Charles Lameth tried to reply but was 
greeted with hisses and could not get a hearing.^ This is the real begin- 
ning of the schism in the Jacobin Club. Barnave and the Lameths, who 
had hitherto been its most popular leaders, did not appear again till 
after the flight of the king, and never again played a prominent part in 

1 Gazette de Paris, March 2, 1790. 

^ Exceptions to this are La Fayette and Sieyes, neither of whom was an active 
participant in the campaign on behalf of the negroes except at the very outset, and 
Mirabeau, who always acted independently of party lines. 

' Aulard, La Societe des Jacobins, II, 412. L'Ami des patriotes, II, 273, n. 
Brissot, M^moires, II, 101. 

* Aulard, op. cit., II, 413-5. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 59 

the Club's proceedings. On June lOth the Club voted the suspension 
of the colonial deputies who had withdrawn from the National Assem- 
bly after the passage of the law of May 15th.^ 

Outside, too, the tide of sentiment was running against the opponents 
of the mulattoes. Lendemain noted that Charles Lameth's popularity 
was in great danger, and the Venetian ambassador referred in a dispatch 
to the disfavor into which the leaders of the people had fallen. Gazette 
de Paris noted that Barnave on May 11th got applause in the Assembly 
from the right, while Gouy d'Arsy tells us that Barnave was "hissed by 
the multitude, of which he had recently been the hero. "^ 

Then came the flight of the king and the consequent withdrawal of so 
many members that the Jacobin Club was temporarily wrecked. During 
July and August many of the more radical members of the Club returned, 
and the remainder formed the Feuillant organization. After this reor- 
ganization all the leading Friends of the Blacks except La Fayette were 
in the Jacobin Club proper, and all the prominent defenders of colonial 
interests were in the Feuillant. The Jacobin Club, however, did not 
drop the names of the seceders from its roll till September 25th. Then, 
as a direct result of the passage of the law of September 24th the Club 
struck off its roll the names of Barnave, Duport, Goupil, and the two 
Lameths, charging them with acting contrary to the rights of man. 
The breach in the ranks of the revolutionists was now complete. 

There was no inconsistency in the attitude of the Constituent Assem- 
bly toward this question, for from beginning to end the controlling 
group was essentially bourgeois and was imbued with a respect for the 
rights of property which outran its zeal for the interests of humanity. 
One hundred and fifty colonial proprietors sat in the Constituent As- 
sembly,'^ and alongside these were ranged the merchants, jealous for the 
prosperity of their customers and debtors, and the ship-owners zealous 
for the protection of the trade in slaves. "Life, liberty, and property" 
were the inalienable rights of man, according to the immortal Declara- 
tion, and no federal court of our own day is more jealous of infringement 
upon the third of these rights than were the "progressives" who made 
the constitution of 1791. The central abuse against which the Revolu- 
tion reacted was the subordination of the interests of the owners of proper- 

^ Aulard, op. cit., II, 494. Gouy d'Arsy, Extrait logographique de la s..ance ds 
Amis de la Constitution de Paris, duVendredi, 10 juin, 1791. 

« Aulard, op. cit., II, 414-5; Kovalevsky, op. cit., I, 262; Gazette de Paris, May 15, 
1791,2; Gouyd'Arsy, Lettreasescomm6tans, 33. 

' Lavie, speech of August 22, 1791, Moniteur, IX, 460. 



60 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

ty to those of the nobility and clergy, and the same conservative impulse 
which led the bourgeoisie to protect the ballot from the true sans-culotte 
by the provision of the "three days' labor" tax made them also very 
ready to weigh sugar heavy in the balance against slavery, and rotting 
ships against rattling chains. ''This system is oppressive, but it supports 
several million men in France," said Barnave, and this in substance was 
the decisive argument in every debate. 



CHAPTER X 

The Mulatto Question in the Legislative Assembly 
The Constituent Assembly had done its best to remove the negro 
question from French poHtics by eliminating it from the sphere of com- 
petence of the Legislative Assembly. If, therefore, extraordinary cir- 
cumstances had not compelled the latter body to turn its attention to 
colonial affairs the work of the Constituent would probably have re- 
mained untouched, and the colonies would have been left in peace to 
work out their own salvation. This, however, was impossible. The 
colonies, and especially San Domingo, could no more work out their 
pohtical problems in peace than could the mother country. The violent 
reaction of the whites against the law of May 15, 1791, provoked the 
mulattoes to take arms in its defense long before the news of the law of 
September 24 arrived. This development was followed immediately 
by a terrible revolt of the slaves, and a triangular contest ensued in which 
the island was delivered over to appalling scenes of murder, arson, and 
piUage. The Legislative Assembly had to disentangle the truth about 
these dissensions from a mass of conflicting testimony and devise a means 
of restoring order, and this necessarily involved reopening the question 
of the status of free negroes and mulattoes, if not the future of slavery 
itself. 

Although the mulatto insurrection began before the slave revolt, the 
latter catastrophe was first reported to the Assembly. The insurrection 
began late in August, 1791, in the province of the North, and spread 
rapidly till it was estimated, probably with much exaggeration, that 
50,000 slaves were in revolt and 150 plantations had been destroyed.^ 
Blanchelande, the governor, took the part of prudence rather than of 
valor, keeping his troops in Le Cap to guard against an insurrection of the 
city negroes and lawless whites, and sending frantic appeals to the Span- 
ish, French, and British possessions and to the United States. He de- 
layed, however, to send word to France, and it was not till October 27th 
that the Assembly received news of the disaster. 

1 Letter of the National Commissioners to the Minister of Marine, Nov. 29, 1791, 
Arch. pari. XXXVII, 315. The colonial assembly estimated 100,000 in revolt and 
200 plantations in ruins. Letter of Sept. 13, 1791, Arch. pari. XXXIV, 87. 



62 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

At first the report was received incredulously by the Jacobin left, as 
a device to draw away troops from France, but as soon as the serious 
character of the rebeUion became evident the Assembly voted an appro- 
priation of over ten million livres, which provided amply for the expense 
of sending the full quota of troops and munitions requested by the Gover- 
nor. On this measure, it should be noted, there was no serious disagree- 
ment.^ Apparently the logical thing to do was to await further sugges- 
tions from the governor, and so far as measures of direct assistance were 
concerned this course was pursued. But the slave rebellion offered a 
handle which neither the radicals nor the colonial conservatives could 
forbear to grasp, and served to reopen the whole controversy which we 
have traced through the period of the Constituent Assembly. 

The radicals, now led by Brissot, were still indignant over the passage 
of the law of September 24th, and the slave revolt gave them their 
opportunity to attack it, the argument being that the disarmament of 
the mulattoes was undoubtedly a primary cause of the rebels' success, 
and that conciliation of the mulattoes was necessary to secure their aid 
in suppressing the revolt. On the other hand, the colonial group pointed 
to the rebellion as a confirmation of their predictions, charging that it was 
caused by the seditious writings of the Friends of the Blacks. 

Before the debate opened on this question, more evil tidings arrived.^ 
The mulattoes in the province of the West were now reported in full 
revolt, demanding the enforcement of the decree of May 15 th. This 
movement, though it involved only a few thousand men, gave promise 
of making more serious trouble than the negro revolt in the North, and 
presented a much knottier problem for the Assembly to handle. During 
the early summ.er of 1791 while the white colonists were uttering their 
first outcries against the law of May 15th, the mulattoes had remained 
quiet. But after the Governor had declared that he would not take the 
responsibihty of enforcing that law if it should ever arrive in official 
form, and especially after the whites had proceeded to elect a new assem- 
bly in entire disregard of the law, the mulattoes resolved to take things 
into their own hands. They organized first in the Province of the West, 
where they were the strongest, and where dissensions among the whites 

^ The point is of importance, as modern authors have charged the Jacobins with 
obstructing the relief of the colony. Neither Blanchelande nor the colonial assemblies 
complained of the amount of military assistance rendered. There was just complaint 
of the delay, as the troops did not get away till December, but the Assembly was 
responsible for only a very small portion of this delay. 

3 Arch. pari. XXXVII, 259-62; Moniteur, X, 399-400, 405. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 63 

played into their hands. The white colonists were divided into two 
parties, one a conservative group composed chiefly of planters, the other 
representing the towns and dominated by the rabble, whose hatred of 
the mulattoes was only equalled by their love of disorder and pillage. 
This latter party, called the Patriots, had adopted the catch-words of the 
revolution and set up a municipal government for Port-au-Prince. Though 
the planters were avowedly royalist and the Patriots revolutionary, 
the points at issue between the two parties bore no close relation to the 
party divisions in France, and at first had no connection with the negro 
question. But the planters made common cause with the mulattoes, 
and together they overpowered the forces put in the field by the new 
city government of Port-au-Prince. On September 11th they compelled 
the city to accept a treaty of peace which, under the title of the Con- 
cordat, played a very prominent part in the politics of San Domingo and 
the debates of the Legislative Assembly throughout the winter. The 
main provisions of this treaty were as follows: The white colonists 
agreed to accept the law of May 15th, and to desist from further attempts 
to secure its repeal. New elections were to be held, mulattoes being 
eligible for the suffrage and for membership in the colonial assembly. 
Proclamation was made of amnesty for past offenses, liberty of the press, 
and inviolability of correspondence. All irregular revolutionary govern- 
ments in municipalities, provinces, and the colony at large, were to be 
abandoned.* 

Meantime, even before news of these transactions reached the north, 
the colonial assembly had executed a volte-face. Helpless in the face 
of the slave revolt, they turned to the mulattoes, the only native popu- 
lation capable of effective field work against the negroes, and offered 
tempting concessions as the reward of aid.^ In a series of laws passed 

* GarranjO/*. ciL, II, 120-45. For text of the Concordat, Arch. pari. XXXVII, 
267-8. 

^ Blanchelande referred repeatedly in his letters to the absolute necessity of secur- 
ing assistance from the mulattoes, and paid high tribute to their valor and endurance. 
The white colonists he described as entirely worthless for military purposes. They 
must, he said, have wine and liquors fresh meat, ragouts, and valets, while the mulat- 
toes march barefoot, can live for a day on bananas and water, and are inured to the 
hardships of the climate. The poorer classes of whites, he reported were watching for 
a favorable moment to pillage the city, and would only consent to serve in the field for 
two-thirds of the loot which might be found in the sacked plantations. Nevertheless 
he insisted that it would be absurd to grant the mulattoes' demands for political recog- 
nition. Letters to the Minister of Marine, Sept. 13 and Nov. 16, 1791, reprinted 
Arch. pari. XXXVII, 259, 3134. 



64 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

in September they removed the prohibition on the mulattoes carrying 
arms; authorized them to meet in parish assemblies to petition for 
redress of grievances; agreed to offer no further opposition to the enforce- 
mentof the law of May 15 th, and promised a vague future ' 'amehoration' ' 
in the status of the free mulattoes who were not included in the provisions 
of that law. Nevertheless, they refused to confirm the Concordat of 
September 11th. The Governor also threw his influence against the 
Concordat, and declared himself unable to promulgate or recognize the 
law of May 15th till it should arrive in official form.® 

This was the puzzling situation which was reported to the Legislative 
Assembly in the closing days of November, 1791. The free mulattoes, 
whose cause was so dear to the advanced revolutionists of France, were 
in alliance with the aristocratic planters of the West, wearing the white 
cockade and fighting in the name of the king, to force the Jacobin law 
of May 15th on the unwilling sans-culottes of Port-au-Prince; while the 
Governor and colonial assembly, themselves strongly suspected of exces- 
sive loyalty to the king, were supporting Port-au-Prince against the 
confederation of mulattoes and aristocratic whites. 

A few days after the news of these developments was received, three 
delegates from the colonial assembly arrived, and offered a report which 
threw down the gauntlet to the Friends of the Blacks. Their orator 
began with a very detailed and harroAving description of the slave 
revolt, and continued with an arraignment of all who disagreed with 
the extreme conservative colonial position, which seems worthy of ex- 
tensive citation: 

" We lived in peace, " said he, ''in the midst of our slaves. A paternal 
government had for several years been improving the lot of the negroes, 
and we dare to assert that millions of Europeans, the victims of want 
and misery, receive much less of the comforts of life than those who have 
been painted to you and to the world as loaded with chains and dying of 
slow torture. 

"The situation of the blacks in Africa, without property, without 
political and civil life, constantly the playthings of the insane fury of 
tyrants ... is changed in our colonies into a condition not only en- 
durable but pleasant. They had lost nothing, for liberty, which they 
do not enjoy, is a plant which has never borne fruit in their native 
land. . . . 

• Correspondence of Blanchelande, the mulattoes and Jumecourt, leader of the 
white planters. Arch. pari. XXXVII, 269-78. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 65 

"Assured of the enjoyment of their property, . . . cared for in 
sickness with an attention which we should seek in vain in the boasted 
hospitals of England, protected and respected in the feebleness of old 
age, undisturbed in their family relations, subjected to labor adapted to 
the strength of each individual, . . . such was the true and unvarnished 
picture of the government of our negroes. 

"But, gentlemen, a society was formed in the heart of France and 
prepared far from us the dissensions and convulsions to which we are a 
prey. At first obscure and modest, it indicated only a desire for an 
improvement in the condition of our slaves, but ... it was ignorant 
of all the means of accompUshing such an improvement, while we were 
unceasingly laboring to accomplish it, and instead of being able to assist 
us, the society, by sowing the spirit of insubordination among our slaves 
and apprehensions among ourselves, forced us to renounce these 
efforts. . . . 

"Soon the society demanded that the slave-trade be suppressed; 
that is, that the profits which might result from it for the commercial 
interests of France should be given to foreigners, for the romantic philoso- 
phy of the society will never persuade all the powers of Europe to abandon 
the cultivation of colonies and leave the inhabitants of Africa a prey 
to the barbarity of their tyrants rather than employ them elsewhere 
under more humane masters to exploit lands which would remain uncul- 
tivated without them. ... 

"Then, entering into the revolutionary movement in France, this 
society tied up its extravagant and illogical scheme to the plan which 
the Empire had conceived of setting itself free, and profiting by the 
universal enthusiasm of all Frenchmen for liberty, it interested them 
through the memory of their own servitude in its project to destroy that 
of the negroes. 

"From this moment this society, or at least some of its members, 
set no bounds to their plans. ... It took advantage of the Declaration 
of the Rights of Man, an immortal work and salutary for enlightened 
men, but inapplicable and therefore dangerous in our society, and sent 
copies of the Declaration into the colony in great numbers, and the 
journals which it subsidized or seduced made this declaration resound 
in the midst of our plantations; the cries of the Friends of the Blacks 
announced openly that the liberty of the negroes was pronounced by the 
Declaration of Rights. " 

After a review of the earlier phases of the controversy over the 
mulatto question the orator continued: 



66 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

"In this state of effervescence, in this general intoxication, . . . the 
discussion of the law of May 15th took place among you; a mass of 
writings which preceded and accompanied this discussion were scattered 
even in our plantations; there were read and noted those terrible words, 
the signal for arson and carnage, "Let the colonies perish!'^ Then it 
was that the letter of a minister of the rehgion of peace, addressed to his 
brothers the mulattoes, announced to our slaves that soon the sun would 
shine on free men only. . . .® 

"It is proven today that the influence of the Friends of the Blacks 
is destructive of the colonies; let them cover themselves with whatever 
sophisms they will, they can never destroy the evidence of our sufferings. 
There is no man of good faith who doubts that their works, their declama- 
tions, their writings, their infamous emissaries, were the active and con- 
stant cause which for two years has been making preparations for our 
ruin and has at last brought it to pass. France owes us protection, but 
troops cannot reassure us if it allows revolt and massacre to be plotted 
against us at home. It owes us protection, but it will try in vain to afford 
it if such offenses remain unpunished. ... A hundred times we have 
demanded public vengeance for the odious manoeuvers of these men who 
turn our fatherland upside down under the guise of hmnanity. We have 
obtained nothing. May the horrible catastrophe whose outlines we have 
traced serve as a lesson for the future, and save from the same evils those 
of our fellow-citizens who have not already undergone them. "^ 

This address evoked a complimentary response from the President, 
and the Assembly after a brief but bitter contest voted to have it printed. 
This friendly reception of an overt defense of slavery may be regarded 
as the highwater niark of the success of the conservative party which 
had controlled the dealings of France with the race question with only 
one short break since the autumn of 1789. 

And yet, although the immediate result was a striking triumph, this 
attack on the Friends of the Blacks was a fatal error, for it forced the 
fighting at a point where the radicals were strong. The charges made 
against the Friends of the Blacks were entirely indefensible. It was 
notorious that the San Domingo colonists had exercised a strict censor- 
ship over the mails since the summer of 1789, and they never produced a 

' This perversion of Robespierre's unfortunate remark (quoted above, p. 49) 
was a constant theme of the antagonists of the Friends of the Blacks. 

* A rather misleading allusion to an ill-judged letter published by Gr6goire. 

• Arch. pari. XXXV, 460-7. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 67 

scrap of evidence to convict the Friends of the Blacks of sending either 
emissaries or Hterature into the island. The charge simply opened the 
way for a consideration of the entire issue, at a time when the colonists 
had already gotten everything they could hope for from legislation and 
had everything to lose. 

The contest which began with this address lasted intermittently for 
four months. It was not comparable either in scope or in quality of de- 
bate with that in the Constituent Assembly. Both sides suffered from 
lack of competent leadership. The colonies had no representatives in 
the Assembly, but the delegates sent over by the colonial assembly were 
liberally supplied with money for campaign purposes and carried on a 
vigorous publicity campaign. As in the Constituent, the ministry and 
the colonial committee supported the colonial cause. Brissot was the 
leader of the radicals and by the inordinate length and extreme unfair- 
ness of his speeches did his utmost to lower the quality of the debate. 
Letters and petitions from Jacobin Clubs, chambers of commerce, and 
similar organizations came in on both sides, the sea-port towns aligning 
themselves as before with the colonial party. ^° 

These communications and all the colonial dispatches dealing with 
the question were referred to the colonial committee, which moved with 
great deliberation. A study of its tactics makes it clear that the com- 
mittee, more circumspect than the colonial assembly, preferred to prevent 
the negro question from becoming an issue rather than to try to control 
the legislature. So when the address of the deputation was referred to 
the committee they pigeonholed it and gave the Friends of the Blacks 
no opportunity for a reply. 

Brissot soon grew impatient, and on December 1st and 3d, 1791, 
secured the floor to present a report himself. This "report" was a doc- 
ument of some 30,000 words" in which was reviewed the entire history 
of the revolution in the colony and the dealings of the Constituent Assembly 
with the problems of colonial administration and mulatto suffrage. Bris- 
sot had no difficulty in defending the Friends of the Blacks from re- 
sponsibiUty for the slave revolt. In fact, he showed pretty convincingly 
that the success of the negroes should rather be attributed to the strife 
between the factions of the whites,the loose talk about liberty which was 
current everywhere, the colonists' policy of disarming the mulattoes, and 
the general weakness of the government. 

" Garran, op. ciL, III,. 12-19. 

" Arch. pari. XXXV, 474-90, 536-42. Cf. Moniteur, X, 518-21, 540. 



68 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

So far Brissot's argument was sound, but this was only a beginning. 
All the doings of the colonial assembly, the colonial members in the Con- 
stituent Assembly, and the Governor were next recounted and inter- 
preted in the light of a theory which Brissot had evolved to the efifect 
that through the whole two years the dominant colonial faction had 
aimed at independence or the transfer of its allegiance to England, This 
was not altogether a fantastic idea, and later events went far to confirm it. 
But Brissot had no proof, nothing but inferences from a few points in 
the conduct of the Governor and the colonial assembly. And he carried 
the idea to an absurd extreme, arguing that the negro revolt itself was 
a scheme to find a pretext for calling in English intervention and breaking 
away from France. 

The remedy which Brissot suggested was to send three thousand 
national guards to the colony, place these troops under the control of new 
commissioners, impeach the Governor, have a new colonial assembly 
elected without race qualifications, and call on the committee on colonies 
for a bill to facilitate the collection of debts in the island. This last 
provision was a thrust at the colonists, who as a class were heavily in- 
debted to the mother country, as colonists always are. Probably Brissot 
hoped by this move to break up the combination of colonists and seaport 
towns by securing the support of merchants who had colonial debtors. 
These proposals did not come to a vote, but a motion by Guadet request- 
ing the king not to allow the employment of troops to overthrow the 
Concordat was passed on December 7th.^^ There was much anxiety 
among the radicals lest the arrival of troops should enable the whites 
to dispense with the aid of the mulattoes and withdraw the concessions 
which had been made to them, and a few extremists proposed to suspend 
the departure of troops entirely, arguing that if the mulattoes were 
assured of proper treatment by the repeal of the law of September 24th no 
troops would be needed. This motion was defeated on December 6th.^^ 

On December 10th and January 11th Tarbe, chairman of the colonial 
committee, presented reports which, though incomplete on account of 
the constant arrival of new dispatches, were quite sufficient to expose the 
utter flimsiness both of the colonists' accusations against the Friends of 
the Blacks and of Brissot's charges against the Governor and the colonial 
assembly. No action of importance was recommended, and none 

" Moniteur, X, 567-8, 573-8. 
" Moniteur, X, 565. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 69 

was taken. There was, indeed, little occasion for legislative inter- 
ference, as the commissioners sent out under the law of September 24th, 
who had not yet been heard from, had adequate authority, and were in 
a better position to direct affairs than was the Assembly. Brissot and 
his followers assailed the reports very bitterly but made no attempt to 
secure action on the next item in their program, which was the formal 
ratification of the concordat and the repeal of the law of September 24th.^* 

For the next six weeks the question slumbered, though occasional 
reports of new disorders reminded the Assembly of the unsettled problem. 
The colonial committee wished to send aid in the form of a loan and a body 
of skilled laborers, and there appears to have been no opposition, yet 
they did not try to push the proposal to a vote. It is pretty clear, in 
fact, that the leaders of the colonial party preferred to let the colony go 
unaided rather than take the risk of stimulating a renewal of activity 
on behalf of the mulattoes. 

Tarbe's third and final report came up on February 29th.^^ It was 
a very able document and contained an excellent survey of conditions 
in San Domingo up to the middle of December. The picture was gloomy 
enough. The slave rebellion in the North was reported to be collapsing, 
but the West had gone from bad to worse. The news of the law of 
September 24th had increased the mutual distrust of the mulattoes 
and the white revolutionists. The "patriot" faction of Port-au-Prince 
had attempted to revoke the Concordat, and had been compelled by force 
of arms to accept it again in a form more drastic than before. During 
the confusion incident to this affair a riot had ensued in Port-au-Prince, 
and the city had been nearly destroyed by fire. The ruins of the city at 
last report were besieged by the confederation of "aristocratic" whites 
and mulattoes, and countless atrocities were taking place. The South, 
hitherto at peace, was now also the scene of desolating civil war. 

Tarbe showed no especial bias against the mulattoes — indeed he 
admitted the justice of their cause, but he made the most of the evidences 
of royalism in the confederation, and identified the white supporters of 
the mulattoes with the counter-revolutionary party of France. Still 
he recommended no interference. This seems rather extraordinary, but 
may have been judicious, as the royal commissioners at last report .had 
not been in San Domingo long enough to form a definite policy, and the 

"Arch. pari. XXXVII, 401-10; XXXVIII, 222-9. Moniteur, X, 592-6; XI, 
93-6, 99-100. 

« Arch. pari. XXXIX, 198-209. 



70 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

troops had not all arrived. Tarbe argued with considerable force that 
if troops were sent to aid the colonists of Port-au-Prince the mulattoes 
would be deprived of their just rights, while if they took the mulattoes' 
side the triumph of aristocracy and counter-revolution was sure to follow. 
As a matter of fact, the difi&culty of dealing with the question from Paris 
was almost insuperable. At best the Assembly could only provide for 
a situation six weeks or two months past with remedies to take effect 
at an equal distance in the future. All they could hope to do successfully 
was to define the purposes and principles of the colonial government, 
and leave local officials to judge of specific measures. But a general 
definition of principles was just what the colonial party was most anxious 
to avoid. 

On March 21st, 1792, more evil tidings arrived. The Governor's 
hopes for a speedy suppression of the slave revolt had not been realized. 
Instead, the rebels had gained ground- rapidly and now controlled the 
whole province of the North, outside the fortified towns in which the 
miserable inhabitants were huddled. The ruins of Port-au-Prince were 
still besieged by mulattoes and "Pompons blancs, " while the South was 
still rent by civil war between mulattoes and whites.^^ 

The Assembly now for the first time since December turned its atten- 
tion seriously to the question, and voted to discuss it without further 
postponement till a settlement should be reached. Brissot opened the 
debate with a motion for the repeal of the law of September 24th, Using 
the facts brought out in Tarbe's report, he showed that in every case the 
rebellion of the mulattoes was provoked by the injustice and bad faith 
of the white colonists, who accepted terms of peace only to break them 
at the first opportunity. The civil commissioners, he pointed out, had 
failed to pacify the mulattoes because they had simply demanded their 
submission to the law, without offering them any guarantee of better 
treatment. This part of Brissot's argument was consistent and made a 
very good case for his motion. He weakened it immensely, however, 
by reviving his previous charge that the Gk)vernor and the colonial 
revolutionary party were trying to transfer the colony to the flag of 
England. 

Tarbe, who replied first, scarcely met the argument on the main point 
at issue, the repeal of the law of September 24, but devoted his time to 
attacking the weak spots in Brissot's argument. The debate, which 
continued for three days, was entirely without feature. The advance of 
radical sentunent during the preceding six months can be seen clearly, 
" Moniteur, XI, 689-90; Arch. pari. XL, 204-5. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 71 

for the opponents of Brissot's measure as a rule made no objection to 
the principle of mulatto suffrage, but merely claimed the measure was 
premature, or pleaded that the colonists be given a chance to make the 
reform themselves.^ ^ Indeed if the debate had been confined to the main 
question, and the conservatives had not had opportunity to becloud the 
issue by riddling Brissot's charges against the colonial government, they 
would have been almost helpless. 

On both sides much time and ingenuity was devoted to the con- 
stitutional question whether the Legislative Assembly could repeal the 
law of September 24th, which was constitutional in form, but was passed 
after the constitution was complete. This question, it should be noted, 
was of much less importance than a similar question would have been 
under our systetti of government, for the Assembly was the final judge 
of its own powers, and its action whether in violation of the constitution 
or not, would be valid as law. 

The discussion ended on March 24th with a complete triumph for the 
radicals. On that date a bill was passed which dissolved all existing 
assem.blies in the French West Indies, and opened the suffrage for their 
replacement to all citizens, regardless of color. Technically the law of 
September 24th was not repealed, but practically the result was the 
same.^^ No colonial assembly could now be chosen, in San Domingo 
at least, which would not be controlled by the advocates of negro suf- 
frage. The law further provided that new civil commissioners were to 
supersede those sent out the previous fall, with the widest possible dis- 
cretion in the administration of the law.^^ The law was sanctioned by 
the king on April 4th, after an attempt on the part of the colonists to 
secure a veto,^'' and is generally referred to as the law of that date. The 
commissioners were appointed and sailed in July. 

" Most of the smaller West Indian colonies had endorsed mulatto suffrage at an 
irregular congress held during the preceding winter. 

'* The law did not, as was generally understood, prohibit race qualifications for 
suffrage in the future. It only guaranteed the free negroes a share in the formation of 
new assemblies which should formulate the law for the future in accordance with the 
law of September 24th, subject only to the royal veto. This point was, however, 
ignored by the commissioners sent out to enforce the law, who treated it as an 
absolute prohibition of race discrimination. 

" For debates on this bill see Moniteur, XI, 689-92, 694-5, 697-700, 703-7, 714-16, 
717-20,723-4. 

2« Garran op. cit., Ill, 32-3. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Legislative Assembly and the Slave Trade 
The legislation just described gave the final answer, so far as the 
Revolution was concerned, to the question of the civil status of free 
negroes. The free negro and the white man were placed on an equal 
footing and left to work out their future relations for themselves. But 
the slavery question remained closed, and no one seemed interested to 
reopen it. After March 24, 1792, all reports and petitions relative to 
the internal affairs of the colonies were referred to their appropriate com- 
mittees from which they never emerged. For the rebelHon of the slaves 
the Legislative Assembly had no remedy HuT the sword, and scarcely a 
sTrigle voice was lifted in protest. By consent of all parties Dupont de 
Nemours' legal fiction of the perpetual minority of the slaves (see above, 
p. 52) stood as the final solution of the problem which they created. 

One other phase of the negro question, however, remained to cause 
vexation. This was the attempt of a few of the radicals to induce the 
assembly to abolish the slave trade, or at least to withdraw the bounties 
provided for its encouragement. It will be remembered that on March 
8th, 1790, the Constituent Assembly had refused a hearing to Mirabeau 
and other opponents of the slave trade and had declared the colonists 
and their property under the special protection of the nation. After 
this defeat the Friends of the Blacks did not try to reopen the question 
of the slave trade till the spring of 1792, and it attracted no attention 
from the public. In fact opposition to this evil was developing faster 
abroad than at home. On February 24th, 1792, Denmark abolished the 
trade, effective in 1803, and on April 3d the English House of Commons 
passed a resolution in favor of gradual aboUtion. The latter action gave 
opportunity for a revival of the issue in France. On April 10th, 1792, 
the Assembly passed a motion calling on the committees on commerce 
and on colonies to render an early report of a plan for the aboHtion of the 
trade. The committees appointed a subcommittee to prepare the plan, 
but they never reported it to the Assembly.^ 

We find no further reference to the question in the proceedings of the 
Legislative Assembly till the ever memorable night of August 9th and 

1 Gerbaux et Schmidt, op. cit., II, 739. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 73 

10th, 1792. At .2:30 on the morning of the 10th the Assembly turned 
its attention from the stirring scenes which surrounded it to the question 
of aboKshing the slave trade, or withdrawing the bounties which fostered 
it. The discussion was soon interrupted by the famous report from the 
Minister of Justice to the effect that the king was in danger and must 
be brought to the Assembly Hall for protection. This episode of course 
put an end to the discussion of the slave trade for that session.^ On 
August 11th the Assembly voted to suppress the bounty of forty livres 
per ton which had been paid to French vessels engaged in the trade. 
Whether this law also suppressed the bounty of from 160 to 200 livres per 
slave which was paid in addition to the tonnage bounty, is not clear, 
though it is evident that such was the intention of the Assembly.^ 

On the 18th another motion to suppress the trade was referred to 
the Committees on Commerce, Agriculture, and Marine. These com- 
mittees dared not make an adverse report, so agreed to make no report 
at all unless they should be compelled to do so, and in that case to recom- 
mend that the question be laid over for the Convention to settle, on the 
ground that the latter body would contain colonial delegates.^ The 
report was never called for and the committee continued its policy of 
keeping the issue smothered. Even when petitions were presented by 
merchants who had what the committee considered good claims for 
bounties, its members were afraid to reopen the issue by recommending 
payment, and advised the petitioners if they could not get a settlement 
from the ministry to wait and appeal to the Convention.^ 

' Moniteur, XIII, 378; Arch, pari., XLVII, 626. 

3 Arch, pari., XL VIII, 27; Gerbauxet Schmidt, op. cit., II, 812, n. 

* Gerbaux et Schmidt, op. cit., II, 808-9; Arch. pari. XLVIII, 360. 

»7Wrf.,Il,812. 



CHAPTER XII 
The Work of the Convention 

In the Convention the negro question was never an issue between . 
parties and received comparatively little attention. Absorbed in the 
problems of the foreign war, and at first containing a large number of 
members who were opposed to radical action, it was disposed, even 
more than was the Legislative, to leave the colonies and their French 
ofi&cials to solve their own problems with a minimum of legislative inter- 
ference. When finally it did turn its attention to the negro question, 
its decision was quickly made. 

As in the previous assemblies, the property interests were in control 
of the important committees. Throughout the winter and spring of 
1793 the new Committee on Commerce was engaged in correspondence 
with the Minister of the Interior concerning the claims for slave trade 
bounties to which reference was made in the preceding chapter. The 
committee was anxious to secure the payment of these claims, but still 
more anxious to keep the question of the slave trade out of the Conven- 
tion.^ Finally, on July 27th, 1793, the Minister appealed to the Con- 
vention for a decision, and recommended that the bounties be suppressed. 
Gregoire made a plea in support of the proposal, and a law abolishing all 
the boimties was passed, apparently without opposition. Another 
vain attempt was made at this time to prohibit the trade entirely.^ 

On September 19th the committee again came to the aid of the claim- 
ants with an explanatory decree providing for the payment of bounties 
accrued before the date of their suppression. This, however, failed of 
passage, and such payments were specifically prohibited.^ 

Meanwhile there were slight but growing indications of interest in 
the question of slavery. The correspondence of representatives of the 
colonial interest bears witness to a great increase in anti-slavery senti- 
ment at the time of the fall of the king. A commissioner of the colonial 
assembly wrote: "Only one spirit governs here; it is horror for slavery 

1 Gerbaux et Schmidt, op. ciL, III, 702, 712; IV, 14, 100-1, 118, 128, 130. 

2 Journal de debats et de decrets, July 28, 1793, 347. (The Journal is here a 
source for the Moniteur.) Courrier de I'egalite, July 28, 1793, 219. Arch, pari., 
LXIX, 580. 

3 Arch. pari. LXXIV, 408-9. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 75 

and enthusiasm for liberty! It is a frenzy which turns the heads of all, 
and it is growing. "^ 

On March 5th, 1793, the Convention passed a law providing for the 
defense of the colonics, one clause of which was of interest in connection 
with our problem: 

"The national commissioners and general governors are authorized 
to make provisionally all the changes in the government and discipline 
of the slave-plantations which they may judge necessary for the main- 
tenance of peace in the colonies."-^ Apparently this action took the 
colonists by surprise, and passed without opposition, but they succeeded 
in delaying its promulgation till the middle of the following summer.^ 

In the attack on the Gironde, and especially on Brissot, colonial 
representatives took a leading part. The identification of the negro 
rebels and mulattoes with royalism in the islands was brought up against 
Brissot, and flags with royal symbols, taken from the negroes, were pro- 
duced in court,'' 

But in spite of this, on June 3d, 1793, the Jacobin Club gave an 
enthusiastic welcome to a deputation of colonists, chiefly mulattoes, who 
marched in with banner and martial music to present their application 
for membership, the most honored of them all being a "petite fllle" 
1 14 years of age, who desired to take the civic oath. The rules were sus- 
pended to permit the immediate admission of the aged mulattress to 
membership, and the President gave the fraternal kiss to the entire depu- 
tation.^ The next day the same delegation paraded before the Conven- 
tion and presented a tri-colored banner, symbo ic of the union of whites, 
blacks, and mulattoes, and a petition for the abolition of slavery.. At 
the appearance of the aged mother the entire assembly arose, and the 
President was instructed to give her the fraternal kiss. On motion of 
Gregoire, the petition was referred to a comjnittee with instructions that 
an early report be rendered, and the deputation was honored with special 
mention in the minutes.^ The Convention's interest was evidently 
slight, for when the committee rendered no report, the question was al- 
lowed to slumber till the following February. 

* Garran, op. cit., IV, 474. 
" Arch. pari. LIX, 627. 

• Garran, op. cit., IV, 491-2. 
'/Wrf., IV, 491-501. 

' Journal des debats de la societe des Jacobins, 5 juin 1793, 5. 
^ Moniteur, XVI, 568. 



76 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Meanwhile the law of April 4th had reached the colonies, where it 
had results differing widely in accordance with local conditions. In 
Martinique it was accepted without oppositions^ while in Guadeloupe 
the whites refused to accept the law and mulattoes who based protests 
upon it were thrown into prison by the governor." 

In San Domingo conditions went from bad to worse. The colonial 
assembly received the lav/ with outward submission, and issued a procla- 
mation summoning all persons to give obedience to it.^^ But as the law 
simply provided for negro suffrage in elections for a new assembly and the 
existing assembly did not dissolve itself nor order new elections, its 
acquiescence in the law was only form.al. The three-cornered M^ar be- 
tween slaves, mulattoes and whites raged on. 

The new civil commissioners, Sonthonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud, who 
arrived in September, were all identified with the radical Jacobin party.^^ 
Ailhaud played no part of importance, and soon returned to France. 
The other two from the first displayed the same unscrupulous energy 
which characterized the deputies on mission sent out in France by the 
Convention a few ro.onths later. They dissolved the Assembly, and in- 
stead of ordering new elections in accordance with the law of April 4th, 
appointed a temporary commission, composed in part of free negroes and 
mulattoes, to take its place. They deported the former governor, the 
new governor who came out with them, and a great number of officials 
and private citizens. They won some successes against the rebel negroes, 
but on the whole made little progress in a miHtary way, for the climate 
proved so deadly that two months after their arrival less than one-half 
their troops were fit for duty. 

In April, 1793, at the head of an army of French troops and mulattoes 
they bombarded and captured Port-au-Prince, which had been holding 
out against the combined forces of the mulattoes and the aristocrats 
for over a year. In June they quarreled with a new governor, Galbaud, 
and in attempting to deport him lost the support of most of the soldiery. 
As the people of Cap Franfais, where the incident occurred, had already 
turned against them, this incident started another civil disturbance in 
which Cap Franjais, the metropolis of the island, was alm.ost destroyed. 

1° Memoire justicatif des hommes de couleur de la Martinique . . . contenant 
I'histoire des hommes de couleur dans les colonies frangaises, 59-61. 

1^ Pardon, La Guadeloupe, 85. 

'2 Blanchelande, Discours justicatif, 53-6. 

" An attempt to secure the appointment of the mulatto Raimond as one of the 
commissioners had been defeated by the activity of representatives of the colonial 
assembly. Garran, op. ciL, III, 128. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 77 

The commissioners won the victory, but only by the desperate expedient 
of calling to their assistance several thousand revolted slaves, and re- 
warding them with their liberty. 

This emergency measure changed the entire situation, and led directly 
to the emancipation of the slaves throughout the colony. The commis- 
sioners had started out with no overt intention of opposing slavery. 
Indeed in an address delivered immediately after their arrival Sonthonax 
had spoken thus: 

"We declare that only colonial assemblies, constitutionally formed 
have the right to free the slaves. 

"We declare that slavery is necessary to the prosperity of the colonies, 
and that it is neither in accordance with the principles nor with the wish 
of the National Assembly of France to touch the prerogative of the 
colonists in this matter. "^* 

In December, however, Sonthonax wrote a letter urging the Con- 
vention to take steps toward a general emancipation.^^ In May the 
commissioners issued a code for the regulation of slavery, which, though 
extremely harsh, marked an improvement over the old regime.^^ Now in 
the midst of the struggle for Cap Francais, their need of military assis- 
tance precipitated a complete change of policy. Driven to the hills 
above the city, confronted by the dominant faction of the whites and the 
mutinous soldiery, with the revolted slaves and the hostile forces of Spain 
behind them and the threat of English invasion hanging over their 
heads, they turned to their only resource. They issued on June 21st, 
1793, a proclamation which offered liberty to all negro warriors who 
would fight against the Spanish or any other enemies of the repubhc. 
The new freedmen were promised all the rights of French citizens. This 
measure applied only to the negroes who had been terrorizing the country 
for the past two years, but at the same time the commissioners announced 
a new set of reforms in the conditions surrounding the slaves, and 
indicated their purpose to work toward a general emancipation. It was 
hardly possible, if they had wished, to grant freedom to rebels and 
refuse it to the faithful slaves whose labor still supported the country. 
As a colonial deputy reported the situation to the Convention some 
months later, 

"The greater part of the North had been in insurrection for two 
years, and . . . there was no hope of making them return to their 

" Sciout, Les commissaires Sonthonax et Polverel, Rev. quest, hist., LXIV, 427. 
1' Stoddard, The French Revolution in San Domingo, 205. 
" Garran, op. ciL, IV, 30-2. 



78 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

work; part of the others had been given their liberty as a reward for 
having defended the laws of France and the representatives of the 
Republic against Galbaud and his accomplices; but all the men claimed 
to be warriors and wished to obtain their liberty in that way. There 
remained only the women and children; for these they asked now another 
act of favor — they said, 'it is not by the fault of our women that they 
have not been able to arm themselves for France. Should the weakness 
of their sex be punished? ... As for the children, they are our own 
blood, ... to keep them in slavery is to condemn us to eternal 
misery.' "^^ 

The commissioners soon carried their work to its logical conclusion. 
On July 11th, 1793, they emancipated the wives and children of the 
newly freed negroes, provided special facilities for transmuting their 
irregular family relations into holy matrimony, and reported to the 
Convention that civilization was making great headway. Compensation 
was granted to the owners of female slaves who obtained their freedom 
by marrying free men. Finally on August 29th Sonthonax proclaimed 
a general emancipation in the North, without consulting his colleague. 
Polverel, who was in charge in the West, had two days previously pro- 
claimed a sort of conditional emancipation for such slaves as would either 
re-enter on the cultivation of the abandoned plantations or enlist in the 
army. Sonthonax's action made it impossible for him to maintain half- 
way measures, and on September 21st with much ceremony he proclaimed 
all the slaves free. Having previously declared that the commissioners 
had no authority to do this, he sought to give his action a show of legality 
by opening registers for the white proprietors to emancipate their slaves 
"voluntarily."^' 

Meanwhile, on July 16th, 1793, the colonists deported by Sonthonax 
and Polverel had secured from the Convention a decree summoning the 
commissioners to return and face charges. The news of this action 
reached San Domingo in the autumn, but instead of complying the com- 
missioners caused deputies to the National Convention to be elected, 
and sent them to Paris to plead their cause. 

On February 3d, 1794, three of these deputies, a negro, a mulatto, and 
a white man, appeared before the Convention. They were received with 

" Compte rendu par Dufay, Moniteur, XIX, 390. 

" The above account of the history of San Domingo under the commissioners is 
drawn chiefly from Sciout, Les commissaires Sonthonax et Polverel, Rev. quest, hist., 
LXIV, 399-470, supplemented by Castonnet des Fois, La perte d'une colonic; Stoddard, 
op. ciL; Schoelcher, Vie de Toussaint Louverture; and the Report of Garran to which 
frequent reference has been made. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 79 

the greatest enthusiasm. Lacroix said, ''For a long time the assembly 
has wished to have in its midst the men of color who have been oppressed 
so many years. Today it has two; I demand that their entry be cele- 
brated by the fraternal embrace of the President." This was decreed, 
and the ceremony duly foUowed.^^ 

The next day one of these deputies made a brief report on conditions 
in San Domingo, attributing the woes of the colony to intrigues of white 
colonists with England and Spain. The negroes, he represented, had 
made possible the defeat of these schemes and in recompense had asked 
and received their liberty.^'" 

The scene which followed can best be described in the words of a 
contemporary joumaHst: 

"The orator urged the Convention to confirm this, promise and to 
give the colonies the full benefits of Hberty and equality. 

Levasseur: 'I demand that the Convention, not yielding to a wave 
of enthusiasm but to the principles of justice, faithful to the declaration 
of the rights of man, decree that from this moment slavery is aboUshed 
throughout the territory of the RepubHc. San Domingo is a part 
of this territory, and yet we have slavery in San Domingo. I 
demand then that all men shall be free without distinction of color.' 

Lacroix (d'Eure et Loir): 'In laboring on the constitution of the 
French people, we have not given attention to the unfortunate colored 
people. Posterity will have a great criticism to make against us in this 
matter, but we ought to make reparation for it. . . . It is time for us 
to rise to the height of the principles of liberty and equality. ... In 
performing this act of justice you will give a splendid example to the 
colored slaves in the English and Spanish colonies. The colored people 
like ourselves have broken their chains; we have broken ours; we have 
not wished to submit to the yoke of any master; grant them the same 
blessing. ' 

Levasseur: 'If it were possible to place before the eyes of the Con- 
vention the distressing picture of the evils of slavery, I would make it 
shudder at the aristocracy practiced in our colonies by certain white 
men.' 

Lacroix: 'Mr. President, do not allow the Convention to dishonor 
itself by a long discussion. ' 

The Assembly rose by acclamation. The President pronounced the 
abolition of slavery, in the midst of applause and cries a thousand times 

" Moniteur, XIX, 387. 
"> Ibid., XJX, 387; 389-95. 



80 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

repeated of 'Vive la Republique, vive la Convention, vive la Montagne!' 

The two colored deputies were at the tribune. They embraced each 
other. Lacroix led them to the President, who gave them the fraternal 
kiss. They were then embraced in turn by all the deputies. . . . 
Danton : 

'Representatives of the French people, until today we have been 
establishing liberty as egoists for ourselves alone. But now we proclaim 
it in the face of the universe, and the generations will find their glory in 
this decree. Yesterday, when the President gave the fraternal kiss to 
the deputies of color, I saw the moment when the Convention should 
establish the liberty of our brothers. The session yesterday was too 
small in numbers. . . . Today the Englishman is dead. ... In vain 
Pitt and his accomplices will wish by political measures to prevent the 
realization of this benefit, they will come to naught, and France will 
recover the rank and influence which are assured by its energy, its 
territory, and ... its population.' "^^ 

After nearly five years of conflict the principles of equality and liberty 
had triumphed, and nearly a million slaves were suddenly transformed 
into citizens of France. Here, if anywhere, the Convention allowed 
democratic enthusiasm to override prudence. And yet there are indica- 
tions that the Assembly was not acting in entire forgetfulness of interests 
more tangible than the principles of equality and liberty. It may seem 
ungenerous to point out that the boon of freedom was not bestowed upon 
the negroes of San Domingo till after they had extorted it by force from 
the hands of the Convention's agents. The hopelessness of any attempt 
to undo what Sonthonax and Polverel had done may not have been 
apparent in 1794, as it became when Napoleon undertook the task. 
But Danton's cry of triumph, "The Englishman is dead!" and Lacroix's 
vision of Enghsh and Spanish slaves in arms against their masters were 
no mere flashes of oratory. Emancipation was an accomplished fact 
in San Domingo, and in the smaller colonies it had become an act of 
military expediency. War with England had been declared a year be- 
fore, and the naval inferiority of France was already apparent. Without 
naval defense the loss of the smaller West Indian islands was inevitable; 
indeed both Guadeloupe and Martinique were destined to fall into 
Enghsh hands before the news of this law reached them. San Domingo 
was the only colony with sufficient population and territory to ofi^er any 

"Moniteur, XIX, 387-8. See also Journal des debats et des decrets, No. 503, 
221-9; Journal de la montagne, No. 84, 672. 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 81 

hope of successful resistance. To yield complete freedom to the negroes 
there offered the greatest possible hope of arousing their resistance to 
the British occupation of San Domingo, and there was a chance that 
the news of emancipation might incite negro rebellions in the smaller 
colonies and in the possessions of England herself .^^ 

How far these considerations influenced the action of the Convention 
we cannot tell. The journaHstic accounts quoted above give the incident 
all the appearance of a genuine and spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm. 
Yet the journaHsm of the Terror was prone to exaggerate the elements 
of emotion and self-denial, and Danton's and Lacroix's remarks were 
certainly premeditated. 

Whatever may have been the purpose of the law, the results justified 
it. In spite of the efforts of the colonists it was promulgated without 
prolonged delay .^^ In San Domingo it made no change in the existing 
regime. In parts of the island a rigid system of discipline kept a portion 
of the negroes at work. Martinique was captured by the British on 
March 22d, 1794, and the law was not pubhshed there. The East 
Indian colonies forbade the slave trade in 1794, but refused to accept the 
law of emancipation, and expelled the commissioners who brought it. 
They maintained a practical state of independence till Napoleon's decree 
of 1802 restoring slavery reached them.^* 

In Guadeloupe the prediction of Danton came nearest to fulfillment. 
Like Martinique the colony fell into British hands before the emancipa- 
tion law arrived, but a vigorous agent of the Republic, Victor Hugues, 
was able to communicate it to the negro population and rouse them to 
cooperate with his tiny army. The British, anticipating nothing of the 
sort, had drawn off a large part of their garrison, and Hugues was able 
to reconquer and hold the island. Economically the colony was ruined, 
but from a military standpoint the achievement was important, as 
Guadeloupe became a rendezvous for French privateers and was a thorn 
in the side of the British for sixteen years.^^ 

^ Cf. Cochin, Results of Emancipation, 38-9; Revolutions de Paris, XVII, 506-8, 

*'"Chaque jour les colons de Paris et leurs emissaires repetent au coniit6 de 
salut public que ce decret est impolitic ue, que I'execution en est impossible; n'ayant 
pas reussi par ces moyens, ils denoncent tous les agens designes pour le porter dans les 
colonies, afin d'empecher leur depart." Testimony of a member of the Committee 
of Public Safety before the Convention, March 9, 1794. Moniteur, XIX, 666. 

«* Cochin, op. cit., 38-9. 

^ Cochin, op. cit., 40-2; Mahan, A.T., Influence of Sea Power upon the French 
Revolution, II, 115-9; Roloff, Die Kolonial Politik Napoleon's I, 19. 



82 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

In Guyana the abolition of slavery for a short time produced the 
woeful consequences predicted by the colonists before its passage and 
generally attributed to it by modern historians. The negroes abandoned 
their labors, and the resulting disturbances, coinciding with the loss of 
an annual subsidy from France by which the government had been sup- 
ported, threatened to reduce the colony to anarchy and bankruptcy. 
The government was soon able, however, to establish a system of forced 
labor and put down marronage, and in a few years order and prosperity 
returned, Hugues was sent here after completing his work in Guade- 
loupe and ruled the colony with great success, though harshly, till it 
was captured by the British and Portuguese in ISOP.^^ 

"Roloff, op. ciL,2\, 211. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Conclusion 

As indicated at the outset of our discussion, the problem we have been 
studying was a minor one, and never aroused a great deal of public inter- 
est. Toward the close of the period some enthusiasm arose from the 
superficial parallel between the individual liberty of which the negroes 
were deprived, and the political liberty which was the fetich of revolu- 
tionary France. The "aristocrats of the skin" became intensely un- 
popular. But there is no evidence of an attitude comparable to the 
deepseated abhorrence of slavery which arose a generation or two later in 
England and the North of the United States. The great majority of 
Frenchmen in all probability hardly gave it a thought. This was partly 
because the problem was so remote from their experience. The average 
man cares very little what happens so long as it does not happen to him, 
and the sufferings of black men in the slave ships of the Atlantic or on 
the plantations of the West Indies made no more personal and urgent 
appeal to the Frenchman of that day than do the stories of famine in 
India and devastation in Poland to the American of today. Partly also 
the indifference was due to a weakness which was inherent in the whole 
humanitarian movement. lit was too intellectual. It was a very 
genuine interest in the welfare of mankind, but its appeal was addressed 
to too small a group to work a far-reaching change in the organization of 
society. \ No army can succeed if it is composed entirely of major gen- 
erals. Deep-rooted habits and long estabhshed institutions can never 
be overthrown by the progress of intellectual enlightenment until the 
nev/ ideas filter down from the class in which they originate to become 
commonplaces and prejudices in the mind of the man in the street. Eigh- 
teenth century "philanthropy, " like Roman Stoicism and modern liberal 
Christianity, had plenty of leaders but a dearth of followers. Not 
until the Enlightenment emptied its ideas into the great social democratic 
movements of the second quarter of the nineteenth century did philan- 
thropy secure a sufficiently broad basis to be effective in righting such 
ancient and strongly intrenched evils as the one a page of whose history 
we have been considering. 

As to the treatment of the negro problem by the revolutionary assem- 
blies, several conclusions are worthy of emphasis. In the first place, 



84 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

we find no evidence whatever of a tendency to shape legislation in accor- 
dance with the abstract ideals of equaUty and Hberty, about which so 
much was said, and to neglect the immediate practical efifects of such 
action. This tendency was frequently imputed to the revolutionists by 
contemporaries, and the charge has been repeated thoughtlessly by 
modern critics. The accusation of fanaticism is a favorite weapon of 
the antagonists of any sweeping reform, and proves to have in this case 
no more weight than do most estimates of partisans made by their oppo- 
nents. In fact the assemblies approached the negro question very deli- 
cately and hesitatingly, and progress was slow and reaction quick. In 
the Constituent no reform was accomplished; an the Legislative the 
hard- won triumph of the Jacobins and Friends of the Blacks brought 
rehef only to the free negroes and mulattoes, not to the slaves; and when 
the Convention after sixteen months' delay finally passed a law which 
struck the shackles from the slaves the time was past when any action 
on its part could seriously injure the property interests of France or 
the leading colonies.' Aided by the deadly climate and the deadlier 
insubordination of the French troops, the negroes of San Domingo had 
won their liberty before it was granted, and the other West Indian colo- 
nies were destined to fall into the hands of the enemy before the law 
could seriously affect them. : For good or for ill, through the corroding 
influence of its example the Revolution had destroyed slavery in San 
Domingo and had destroyed the prosperity of the colony, long before 
the men who directed the course of the movement were ready to apply 
its principles to the solution of the problem of slavery. The common 
assimiption, therefore, that the overthrow of the French colonial system, 
and especially the ruin of San Domingo, was caused by the recklessness of 
revolutionary assembUes in dealing with slavery, finds no support in the 
facts. As in the United States in 1863, emancipation in San Domingo was 
a result, not a cause of civil war. It was a desperate expedient to save the 
colony from foreign and domestic foes of the repubhc, and as such it was 
for the time a success. And the extension of the poHcy by the Conven- 
tion to the smaller colonies was an intelligent act of military expediency, 
analogous to the spiking of cannon on a lost battlefield. 

The charge of fanaticism on the part of the assemblies breaks down, 
but to the graver charge of utter indifference to human welfare and com- 
plete absorption in material interests the verdict must be "guilty." The 
assemblies were bold enough and radical enough in striking at ancient 
evils in other fields, how can we account for their weakness and indecision 
here? In attempting to answer this question, two reasons, aside from 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 85 

the obvious absorption of public attention by larger issues, suggest 
themselves, one found in the character of the opposition the negro cause 
had to meet, the other inherent in the anti-slavery movement itself. 

The strength of the opposition has been brought out so fully in the 
preceding pages as to require little comment. Fundamentally the issue 
was between property and principle. In such a contest principle usually 
triumphs, but only in the long run. The defenders of slavery and the 
slave trade had eflScient organization, abundant resources, and able lead- 
ership. They appealed effectively to the interests of different sections 
of the public, constantly emphasizing the peril to commerce and finance, 
the menace of unemplo3niient, and the rising cost of living. They knew 
equally well how to pack the gallery and the floor with howling mobs, and 
how to control the secret activities of a committee. And as usual proper- 
ty gained the temporary advantage. 

On the side of the Friends of the Blacks there was also neither feeble- 
ness of forces nor lack of zeal. Their numbers included several of the 
most popular intellectual leaders of France, both within and without the 
assemblies, and their efforts were supported, before the close of the cam- 
paign in the Constituent, by the most powerful political machine the 
modern world had yet produced, the Jacobin Club of Paris and its pro- 
vincial branches. The mulatto lobby headed by Raimond was efficient 
and untiring. Neither time, labor nor money was spared in the effort to 
secure at least some small benefit for the black man from the new poHtical 
gospel. And yet their campaign was essentially weak. They labored 
under a moral difficulty which was inherent in the philosophy of the 
Enlightenment, the worship of the absolute. The modern doctrine of 
ethical relativity, the conception that conduct which is right in one 
country or in one century may be wrong in another, was entirely foreign 
to their thought. Slavery was an absolute wrong, and no consideration 
of the impracticability of immediate emancipation, no fear of greater evils 
to follow its abolition, could make it right for a single day. As a result, 
they were constantly placed under the necessity of choosing between 
loyalty to their principles and the adoption of a policy dictated by com- 
mon sense. The inevitable result of a succession of such choices is either 
blind fanaticism and disregard of common sense or the destruction of the 
force of ethical considerations. This was the fatal weakness of the negro- 
phile cause. For a party which must make its appeal to moral principles 
against self-interest the situation was impossible. They could not fol- 
low their own argument to its logical conclusion. Once they had agreed 
to the continuation of slavery, which both sides agreed to be immoral. 



86 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

they destroyed the force of their argument on moral grounds against the 
slave trade and the subordination of the mulattoes. As they had no 
other argument, they were left in a hopelessly vulnerable position.^ 
And in this respect the weakness of the Friends of the Blacks was the 
weakness of the Revolution itself, which could condemn but could not 
tolerate, could destroy but could not compromise. ■* 

^ Cf. Malouet's argument above, p. 47, and Mosneron's speech in the Jacobin 
Club, in Aulard, La Societe des Jacobins, I, 9-17. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(Titles which stand without comment are those of works of minor importance 
for the purposes of this study.) 

A. Collections of Documents, Memoirs, Contemporary Books 

Archives parlementaires de 1787 a 1860, ed. Mavidal et Laurent. (First Series, 
1789-99, 82 volumes published.) Paris, 1879-. 

The merits and defects of this publication are so well known as scarcely to require 
comment. In the earlier volumes an attempt was made to reconstruct the proceed- 
ings in the assemblies by combining material from the journals and from the proces- 
verbal. As this task was performed in an extremely uncritical way, and no references 
to sources were given, the results are not reliable. Nevertheless, the compilation is 
of immense service when used with proper care, as it is well indexed, and the material 
used in constructing its accounts can generally be identified. Numerous documents 
are reprinted as appendices to the accounts of parliamentary sessions. These are 
textually very accurate, though frequently misplaced. From volume 72 the attempt 
to reconstruct the proceedings is abandoned and we are given the proces-verbal of the 
Convention, together with the relevant extracts from the journals and other docu- 
ments, all being carefully identified. These later volumes are scholarly in every way. 

Assemblee Nationale, Proces-verbal de. 75 volumes, Paris, 1789-91. Minutes 
of the Assembly, text of laws, and numerous documents. 

Aulard, F. A. La Societ6 des Jacobins. Recueil de documents pour I'histoire 
du Club des Jacobins de Paris. (Collection de documents relatiis a I'histoire de Paris 
pendant la Revolution franfaise.) 6 volumes; Paris, 1889 ff. Very complete and 
scholarly in every way. 

Brissot, Jacques Pierre (dit de Warville). Correspondance et papiers precedes 
d'un avertissement et d'une notice sur sa vie. Par CI. Perroud. Paris, 1911. 

— Memoires (1754-93), publi6es avec etude critique et notes, par CI. Perroud. 
Paris, n.d. 

Clarkson, Thomas. History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the 
Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament. 2 volumes, Phila- 
delphia, 1808. Very full and very valuable narrative, by one who played a leader's 
part in the events he describes. 

Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de. Oeuvres de. 
Publiees par A. Condorcet O'Connor et F. Arago. 12 vols. Paris, 1847-9. 

I Dispacci degli Ambasciatori Veneti alia corte di Francia durante la Rivoluaione. 
Ed. Massimo Kovalevsky. Vol. I, Torino, 1895. (Second volume never published.) 
A shrewd and discriminating commentary on the course of events in France, from 
the beginning of the revolution to the spring of 1793. 

Duquesnoy, Adrien C3T)rien. Journal de . . . sur I'Assemblee constituante, 
3 mai, 1789—3 avril, 1790. 2 vols. Paris, 1894. 

Garran de Coulon, J. Ph. Rapport sur les troubles de Saint-Domingue, fait au 
nom de la commission des colonies, des comites de salut public, de legislation et de 
marine, reunis. 4 vols. Paris, An V, VI. 



88 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

This report, prepared for the information of the Convention, was based on a very 
exhaustive and careful study of the material available for study a few years after the 
disorders in San Domingo began. Although Garran's work shows partisanship, his 
evident intention was to present the truth, and his work was of a high order of merit. 
As many of the documents he used are no longer available, the report is one of the most 
important sources for the history of the early years of the revolution in San Domingo. 
It is also of considerable value for events in France. 

Gerbaux et Schmidt. Proces-verbaux des comites d'agriculture et de commerce 
de la constituante, de la legislative, et de la convention. (Collection de documents 
in6dits sur I'histoire economique de la revolution frangaise.) 4 vols. Paris, 1906 ff. 

Gr^goire, Henri. Memoires. 2 vols. Paris, 1840. Written about 1808. 

Jallet. Journal inedit de . . . , Cure de Cherigne, depute du clerge du Poitou 
aux fitats-generaux de 1789, precede d'une Notice Historique par J. J. Breth6. Fon- 
tenay le Comte, 1871. 

Lameth, Alexandre Theodore Victor, comte de. Histoire de I'Assemblee con- 
stituante. 2 vols. Paris, 1828-9. 

Malouet, V. P. Collection de Memoires sur les colonies. 5 vols. Paris, An X. 

Mirabeau, Honore Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de. Mdmoires de . . . , ecrits par 
lui-mSme, par son pere, son oncle et son fils adoptif. 8 vols. Paris, 1841. 

Moreau de Saint-Mery. Lois et constitutions des colonies. 6 vols. Paris, 1789. 
A very extensive collection of laws and administrative edicts in force in the colonies at 
the beginning of the revolutionary era, prepared by the foremost contemporary author- 
ity on colonial affairs. 

B. Contemporary Journals 

L'Ami des Patriotes ou le Defenseur de la Revolution. Nov. 27, 1790, to Sept. 
27, 1791. (First part ed. Duquesnoy.) 

Courrier de Provence. July 24, 1789, to Sept. 30, 1791. Triweekly. Successor 
to the Lettres du Comte de Mirabeau a ses Commetans. On account of Mirabeau's 
connection with the Friends of the Blacks this journal is of considerable value for the 
purposes of this study, especially for 1789 and the first half of 1790. 

Gazette de Paris. Oct. 1, 1789, to Aug. 10, 1792. Organ of the colonial interests, 
but of comparatively slight importance. 

Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel. Nov. 24, 1789, to 6 niv6se, An VIII. 
An introduction and 93 artificial numbers covering the period from May 3 to Nov. 23, 
1789, were composed in 1795; these are included in reprints but have not been used as 
source material for this study. The standard source for the debates. References are 
to the familiar reprint of 1858-63. 

Journal des debats de la Societe des Amis de la constitution, s6ante aux Jacobins 
a Paris. June, 1791 to 24 frimaire, An II. 

Journal des debats et des decrets. Versailles and Paris, Aug. 1789, to 30 floreal, 
AnV. 

Journal des fitats-Generaux. 35 vols., June 1, 1789, to September 30, 1791- 
with an introduction in one volume, April 27 to May 30, 1789. (Le Hodey de Sault- 
chevreuil.) From Volume 4 the title adds "aujourd 'hui Assemblee nationale per- 
manente, " and from Volume 20, adds " ou Journal logographique. " Commonly called 
the Logographe. I have followed Aulard's practice of referring to the publication as 
"Le Hodey." 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



89 



This is the best single source for the debates in the Constituent. Speeches as a 
rule are reported more fully than in the Moniteur, and numerous documents are re- 
printed. The extreme rarity of the publication has prevented its being utilized as 
generally as its merits would lead one to expect. 

Journal de la montagne, June 1, 1793 to 28 brumaire, An III. 

Le Hodey. See Journal des Etats-Generaux. 

Moniteur. See Gazette nationale. 

Le Point du jour ou resultat de ce qui s'est passe la veille a I'Assemblee nationale. 
June 1, 1789 to Oct. 1, 1791. After the Moniteur and Le Hodey the most important 
source for debates in the Constituent, but much less full than the other two. 

Premiere (to Dix-neuvieme) Lettre du comte de Mirabeau a ses commetans. (May 
10 to July 24, 1789.) See Courrier de Provence. 

Revolutions de Paris. July 12, 1789 to 10 ventose, An II. 

C. Pamphlet Liter atxjre 
The Andrew D. White Library of Cornell University contains a remarkably com- 
plete collection of pamphets relating to the history of San Domingo during the Revo- 
lution. Only those which bear directly on the subject of this study are listed here. 

Adresse de I'Assemblee provincial de la partie du Nord de Saint-Domingue a 
I'Assemblee nationale. Paris, 1790, pp. 23. Reprinted Arch. Pari., XVIII, 561 ff. 

Blanchelande, Philibert Francois Rouxel de. Discours justicatif prononce . . . 
le 30 nov. 1792, pp. 59. 

Chabanon des Salines, J. C. Denonciation de M. I'abbe Gregoire et de sa lettre 
duSjuin, 1791. Paris, 1791, pp. 50. 

Chaumette, Anaxagoras. Discours sur I'abolition de I'esclavage. Paris, An II. 

Cocherel, De. Opinion sur I'admission des negres et mulatres libres aux Assem- 
blees provinciales. Moniteur, December 1, 1789. 

—Observations ... sur la demande des mulatres. Probably written in 
December, 1789. Reprinted in the Archives parlementaires as an annex to the 
proceedings of November 28, 1789, an error. (Cf. Brette, Rev. fr. XXLK, 326-45.) 

Collection des adresses et petitions des Citoyens-commergants de la ville de Nantes 
et des deputes extraordinaires du commerce sur les affaires des colonies. Nantes, 
1791, pp. 49. 

Cournand, Antoine de. Reponse aux Observations d'un habitant des colonies 
sur le memoire en faveur des gens de couleur de Saint-Domingue, par M. Gregoire. 
Paris, ?1789, pp. 37. 

Dillon, Arthur. Motifs de la motion faite a I'Assemblee nationale le 4 mars, 1791 . 

Paris, 1791, pp. 3. 

Extrait du proces-verbal de I'assemblee de citoyens libres et proprietaires de 
couleur des isles et colonies frangaises, constituees sous le titre de Colons Americams. 
Paris, 1789, pp. 16. 

Gouy d'Arsy, Louis Marthe de. Confession d'un depute dans ses derniers mo- 
mens. Paris, 1791. Reprinted Arch. Pari., XXXI, 301. 

— Diverses pieces redigees et publiees pendant le temps que les deputes des 
colonies sesont abstenus des seances de I'Assemblee nationale. Pans, 1791, pp. 4. 

—Extrait logographique de la seance des amis de la constitution de Paris du 
vendredi 10 juin, 1791, pp. 16. 

—Fragment d'une lettre a ses commetans. Paris, 1791, pp. 12. 



90 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

— ^Lettre a ses commetans. Paris, 1791, pp. 47. 

— Premiere et demiere lettre a Jean Pierre Brissot, auteur d'un Journal 
intitule le Patriote frangaise. Paris, 1791, pp. 11. 

— Lettre de M . . . et de Reynaud a I'Assemblee nationale a I'occasion de 
I'evasion du roi et de la famille royale. Paris, 1791 . 

Gregoire, Henri. Memoire en faveur des gens de couleur ou sang-meles. Paris, 
1789, pp. 52. 

— Lettre aux philanthropes. Paris, 1790. (Courrier de Provence, XI, 
115-35.) 

Lettre aux citoyens de couleur et negres libres de Saint-Domingue. Paris, 
1791. Reprinted Arch, pari., XXVII, 232-4. 

Lettre des deputes de Saint-Domingue a leurs commetans, en date du 12 aoiit, 
1789. Paris, 1790. 

M6moire justicatif des hommes de couleur de la Martinique. Paris, 1826. 

Page et BruUey. Developpement des causes des troubles et des desastres des 
colonies frangaises. Paris, 1793. 

Petition nouvelle des citoyens de couleur des isles frangoises a I'Assemblee nation- 
ale. Paris, 1791, pp. xii, 19. 

P.U.C.P.D.D.L.M. Observations d'un habitant des colonies, sur le memoire 
en faveur des gens de couleur de Saint-Domingue. Paris, 1789. 

Raimond, Julien. Lettre au Citoyen D. Paris, 1793, pp. 24. 

— Lettre d'un Citoyen detenu pendant quatorze mois et traduit au tribunal 
revolutionnaire, etc. Paris, An II, pp. 12. 

— M6moire sur les causes des troubles et des desastres de Saint-Domingue. Paris, 
1793, pp. 66. 

— Observations sur I'origine et les progres due pr6jug^ des colons blancs contre 
les hommes de couleur. Paris, 1791, pp. 46. 

— Veritable origine des troubles de Saint-Domingue et des differents causes que les 
ont produits. Paris, 1792, pp. 55. 

Society des Amis des Noirs. Adresse aux amis de I'humanite. Paris, 1790, pp. 4. 

— Adresse a I'assemblee pour I'abolition de la traite des noirs. Paris, 1790, 
pp.2. 

— Adresse de la . . . 6tablie a Paris. Read before the National Assembly, April 
10, 1790. Arch, pari, XII, 627-8. 

— Adresse a de la ... a I'Assemblee nationale . . . redigee par E. Claviere. 
Second edition, Paris, July 10, 1791, pp. xxviii, 318. 

This is by far the most important of the publications of the Society, and one of 
the most valuable sources for this investigation. See p. 43 above. 

Tausia Bornos. Coup d'oeil impartiel sur les d6crets de I'Assemblee nationale 
relativement aux colonies. Paris, 1791. 

D. Modern Books 

Boissonnade, P. Saint-Domingue a la veille de la revolution et la question de la 
rdpresentation aux fitats-generaux. Paris, 1906. Scholarly and exhaustive. 

Castonnet des Fosses, H. La perte d'une colonie. La revolution de Saint- 
Domingue. A good popular treatment. 

Cochin, A. The Results of Emancipation. Trans, by Mary L. Booth, Boston, 
1863. Title refers to the emancipation of slaves in the French colonies in 1848. Con- 



THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 91 

tains information not otherwise readily accessible concerning the effect in the colonies 
of the abolition law passed by the Convention. 

D6schamps, L. Les colonies pendant la R6volution, la constituante et la r6forme 
coloniale. Paris, 1898. A pioneer in this field. Very inaccurate in matters of detail 
and marred by excessive and uncritical reliance on the Archives Parlementaires. 

Garrett, M. B. The French Colonial Question. 1789-91. Ann Arbor, 1916. 
This very careful narrative appeared after the present study was in manuscript, hence 
has been used only for correction of a few details. The best secondary authority in 
the field. 

MUls, H. E. The Early Years of the French Revolution in San Domingo. 
Ithaca, 1889. Dry and marred by excessive reliance on the Archives parlementaires 
but accurate and painstaking. 

Mahan, A. T. The Influence of Sea Power upon History. Boston, 1904. (18th 
edition.) 

Pardoij. La Guadeloupe depuis sa decouvert6 jusqu'i nos jours. Paris, 1881. 

— La Martinique depuis sa decouverte jusqu'a nos jours. Paris, 1877. 

Peytraud, L. L'Esclavage aux Antilles frangaises avant 1789. Paris, 1897.- 
An excellent piece of work. 

Rolofi G. Die Kolonialpolitik Napoleon's I. Munich, 1899. 

Schoelcher, V. Vie de Toussaint Louverture. Paris, 1889. Popular in form 
and exhibits strong partiality for Toussaint and the Revolution. 

Stoddard, T. Lothrop. The French Revolution in San Domingo. Boston and 
New York, 1914. A semi-popular study of the whole period from 1789 to 1803. The 
sections dealing with the work of the assemblies from 1789 to 1795 are disappointing; 
chiefly on account of an inadequate use of published materials, especially of the 
journals. 

Vaissiere, P. de. Saint-Domingue, la societe et la vie Creoles sous I'ancien 
regime 1629-1789. Paris, 1909. Excellent. 

E. Periodical Literature 

Brette, A. Les Gens de couleur libres et leurs deputes en 1789. La Revolution 
frangaise, XXIX, 326-45, 385-407. 

A minute and very able study of the attempt of the mulattoes to gain representa- 
tion in the Constituent Assembly. 

Cahen, L. Les Amis des noirs et Condorcet. La Revolution frangaise, L, 481- 
511. 

Sciout, L. La Revolution a Saint-Domingue: Les Commissaires Sonthonax et 
Polverel. Revue des questions historiques, CXXVIII, 399-470. 

A study of the middle period of the revolution in San Domingo. Valuable for 
data derived from manuscript sources otherwise not readily accessible but so strongly 
biased against the revolution as to make its proper use a matter of diflaculty. 



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